Tehachapi Hills - 14 Aug 12

[m_j_lyons]

Finally had the right mix of work trips, dark skies, and time to get out and spend some time under the stars. My 'normal spot' was cloud covered with a second day of thick 'monsoon' moisture pushing into the US SouthWest and hanging out over the mountains. I tried out a new stargazing location 10 minutes from my hotel...it provided good skies to the east and south...north was washed out from local businesses and west had sky glow for quite a while. That said...the Milky Way was beautiful and nearly stretched from horizon to horizon (sky glow to the north stopped it in that direction). Lagoon Nebula/Butterfly Cluster were obvious and M31 was just visible (averted) once it was high enough. So overall conditions were pretty decent.

Location: Tehachapi, CA, USA

Elevation: ~4300' MSL

Time: 21:00-00:30

Observing was done primarily with my 10mm EP for 120x but for some targets i also used the 26mm EP for 46x. UHC filter was used for nebula.

I went out with SkyTools3 and sorted my Hershell 400 list to show only objects in SCO and SGR.

Here's the list of objects observed from that quick sorting:

NGC6451 (Tom Thumb Cluster) - OC - shape looked roughly like a heart

NGC6544 - GC - a tight, dusty snowball

NGC6520 - OC - looked like a thumb...dark vein in MW surrounding

NGC6624 - GC - compact cluster...nearly solid core with dusty 'corona'

NGC6553 - GC - faint...somewhat trapizoidal shaped...no detail

NGC6569 - GC - even, dirty textured snow ball

NGC6645 - OC - nothing memorable...a grouping of stars in the MW...easy find

NGC6568 - OC - another bunch of stars a little closer than others...nothing memorable

NGC6818 (Little Gem) - PN - a fuzzy star a bit bigger than the rest - perhaps a slight blue hue?

NGC6583 - OC - a faint little OC that stood out enough to make me figure out what it was...shaped like a fuzzy triangle

NGC6540 - GC - a ghost of a GC...very faint...averted best

NGC6558 - GC - small, faint GC

NGC6547 - OC - hard to pin down...non-descript but the field was right

Then moving over to the Messier List I observed

M25 - OC - easy target

M55 - GC - not an easy star hop but a nice cluster once there...100+ stars visible

M75 - GC - tight GC with a bright core which quickly diffuses to about 3x the core width...a fuzz ball

M15 - GC - WOW! Nice GC...bright with lots of tendrils running away from the core

M30 - GC - a right GC that looked like it had 2-3 legs coming off it...more like and oC than a GC

M72 - GC - dirty snowball...not bright

M73 - OC - difficult star hop for me... to see...4 stars(?)...blah.

Then I finished the night with two new friends and two old ones:

NGC7000 (North American Nebula) - Diff Neb - UHC filter - saw the Gulf of Mexico area pretty easily...haze only in the rest of 'North America' Will have to revisit under darker skies.

IC5070 (Pelican Nebula) - Diff Neb - UHC Filter - could just see the largest/brigtest section with averted vision...and just barely. Will have to revisit under darker skies

M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) - GX - beautiful first view in months

M110 - GX - Andromeda's little partner...pretty

M33 (Pinwheel Galaxy) - just searched for it for the fun of it...just faintly visible with no detail. Need darker skies.

A very good night by all standards.

22 new finds, a few old friends and I finished the Messier List!!! Yeah!

Happy Hunting!

[Mike73]

Thats a great night and congrats on completing the Messiers!

[KevUU]

Blimey! Congrats on the Messiers (from someone well and truly at the other end of the observing spectrum!)

[m_j_lyons]

Thanks guys, I guess after one completes the M-list they start a determined push on C- or H- lists...always more to hunt and observe.

Cheers.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report of a great haul of objects. I got quite a few of them during my stay in France this year, but missed NGC 6547, NGC 6583, and NGC 6540. I think the latter, at mag 14.6 is beyond my scope. Well done getting it with a 10"

[m_j_lyons]

Nice report of a great haul of objects. I got quite a few of them during my stay in France this year, but missed NGC 6547, NGC 6583, and NGC 6540. I think the latter, at mag 14.6 is beyond my scope. Well done getting it with a 10"

You made me go back and look at my logs again...NGC 6540 has an interesting quirk - looking at the 'baseline' magnitude in SkyTools (and I'm guessing pretty much any charting sofware) it shows a mag of 14.6...but when I go into the details for the cluster it shows a mag of 8.9. I found it faint...mainly an averted vision target - but it wasn't mag 14 difficult. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you'd have no problem with NGC 6540 from your normal DSO location.

I was pleased with NGC 6583 but I didn't go hunting for it. I stumbled across it while enjoying the starfield around another cluster and this little OC jumped out at me so I had to do some forensic astronomy to figure out what I was looking at.

And where I listed 6547 it should have said 6647...it makes a big difference.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I am now a lot further north than during my vacation, and NGC 6540 is beyond me here. Next year I will give it a try.

[andrew63]

Well done on the Messier list.

andrew