2007 Sentinel/Schwaar Stargaze

[Astroman]

Rosie and I overcame many traffic obstacles to arrive at Sentinel for the annual pilgrimage to Pierre's favorite site for a two night session under the stars. There was quite a lot of debate if it'd be worth it or not, as clouds threatened to thwart observations, but we'd already taken the time off and a weekend in the boonies is better than one in the house, even if it rains, (or maybe especially).

As I set up the camper and telescope, I kept an eye on the sunset and sky. Sunset was spectacular, with several layers of clouds of different types reflecting sunset in glorious colors. It looked like we may luck out and have partly cloudy skies with intermittent clear spots, (or "sucker holes"). I soon found Jupiter, Fomalhaut, the summer triangle and the Great Square of Pegasus. Cassiopeia was in the clear to the east, as was Perseus, so we observed the comet for a while. It was stunning, with a large, round coma that seemed to be shaped by internal forces into a jelly-fish shape as viewed from an oblique angle. Several bright stars were visible through the coma, and could easily be mistaken for internal features merely by virtue of the brightness of the comet itself.

Unfortunately, the sucker holes spread and diminished throughout the night, and we were totally socked in by 11:00. Having awakened at 4 am to get Rosie to work, this was actually rather welcome. We'd take turns getting up in the night to check the weather, but to no avail.

Saturday dawned cool and slightly cloudy, but there was a distinct clearing line to the west, with lots of blue skies beyond. The five of us that were there Friday chatted here and there, and I showed them my plans for Pierre's binocular chair. I got lots of positive feedback, but no objections or suggestions.

By Saturday night at sunset, there were 30 vehicles at the site and bustling astronomers all around. the sky was very clear, but it was a bit on the breezy side. (It was for just this eventuality I built my Pieramyd mount-to hold the C8 steady in winds up to 25mph. I had no problems at all, even early, while others struggled. ) After around 9pm, the wind subsided and I could hear lots of chatter on the comet and other deep sky gems.

Our observing list was made up of items from the "Best 110 Of The NGC" published by SAC. As I've said before, we've completed this list at least twice before, but have failed to comile it into something submittable. Carelessness with note books being the biggest fault. This time, we're logging it all directly into a pre-published booklet available at:http://www.saguaroastro.org/content/Book_110BestOfNGC.htm Plans were to get through as many as possible on the meridian and pick off objects as they rose. This worked very well, as we eventually logged 20+ objects.

To say the locations went smoothly would be misleading at best. I struggled quite a lot early on, as we looked for several faint face-on galaxies and microscopic planetary nebulae in Cepheus and Camelopardalis. I finally got fed up and checked my polar alignment. It turns out the alignment I did the night before was waaay off, due to mistaking SAO 181 in Cepheus for Polaris, and failing to drift align due to clouds. No wonder! My setting circles were off by several degrees. So, I realigned, on Polaris this time, and everything went smoothly from there.

I wouldn't say there were many photogenic objects on the list, but there were a few very interesting ones. Some of the smaller PN's were very bright, while tiny, tiny. Intense is a word I used a lot. One target was NGC 2392, The Eskimo Nebula. One of the larger, brighter and more famous objects, it showed nice range of detail from outside to inside. Slightly out-of-round, I could easily see the "fluff" of the parka and the dense face within. Nice target!

I'll just give you a list of objects we saw, cause it's time to get offline.

NGC 1501, 2403, 2655, 6939, 6946, 6503, 6543, 1907, 1232, 1535, 772, 2158, 2392, 2344, 2261, 1973, 2024, 2022, 2194, 2438, 2240, and 2539.

We took another look at the comet at around 3am, along with Saturn, (amazing!) and Mars, (showing some nice detail in the Mare Tyrrhenum and Aeolis regions).

At 3:30 am, we packed it up and went to bed. Seeing was a little soft, but transparency was good. Eyeballs about to fall out, and the Sand Man was having his go. All around another wonderful night in the desert!

[barkis]

Thanks for that AM, I had put in a request for your weekend report in the science section regarding Global warming, hoping you would see it there and oblige. You obviously intended posting this tonight, so my request was unnecessary anyway.

Well it's a great insight as to what you experienced under the AZ desert skies. How nice to have been there. Probably nowhere near perfect for astronomy as you would have liked, but at least you got some observations done.

You had plenty of company too, which is always great at gatherings. Nothing more disappointing than when folks don't turn up to a pre arranged gathering.

So, thanks for the bulletin AM, Always a pleasure hearing what activities are going on your side of the pond.

Thanks again.

Ron.