Viewing Notes
August 24, 2001
Empire Ranch
Obsession 20" f/5 reflector

I was not planning on doing any viewing this weekend because of my extended outing last weekend. That changed when I got some email from the AZ-Observing group that indicated several people where going to go out to Empire Ranch Friday night. That wasn't enough to make me decide to go. Then I got an email from Mark Sloatman, who is thinking about buying an Obsession 20", asking when the next time I would be going out to view. I also got an email from another friend with the a chart for locating a recently discovered comet (P/2000 Q2).  So the combination of prompts really cast my fate. I contacted Mark and made arrangements for the evening.

Mark was gung-ho and really wanted to do as much observing as possible, bringing along THREE pages of stuff he wanted to see. I kind of knew then that I was going to be putting in an all-nighter. We left my house around 9 p.m. and arrived at viewing site at Empire Ranch around 10 p.m. It turned out that we were the first, and only, people to arrive. Everyone else must have decided to not go out, or view someplace else.

Tucson hit 104° F (40° C) yesterday and I had the telescope in my vehicle (in the carport) all day so the telescope was very warm. The temperature at Empire Ranch was 65° F (18° C) when we arrived. The first images through the telescope were understandably horrible. It took about three and a half hours for the mirror to reach thermal equilibrium.

Mars was up in the southern sky and we took a peek knowing that not much would be seen. We were right. I told Mark that nebulae were probably going to be our best bet with the mirror still being so warm. So we got busy with Nebula Row in Sagittarius.

B86, The Ink Spot. I like to start with this object because it is a contrast to the more famous nebulae in the area. The nearby open cluster NGC 6520 also makes for an interesting viewing pair. The cluster wasn't as spectacular because of the heat from the mirror.

M8, The Lagoon Nebula. Very nice both with and without the O-III filter. The 31mm Nagler (95x) gave the best view. Lots of structure that seems to go on forever. You definitely have to move the scope around to see all of the nebula.

M17, The Swan or Omega Nebula. Again, very nice both with and without the O-III filter. We spent the most time on this object that any other nebula because it was so fantastic. We pushed the magnification to 327x and the structural detail held up very well, even when using the O-III filter. I thought the 22mm Panoptic (134x) gave the best view.

M16, The Eagle Nebula. This particular is actually better without the O-III filter. The filter does bring out more nebulous glow but at the expense of the dark cloud structure. The dust/gas column features were visible at the 95x and 134x views used. 

M11, The Wild Duck Cluster. Mark was disappointed in this because it didn't look anything like a "wild duck". He lamented that he could see the fan shape in his 8" SC and thought it would look spectacular in my 20". The minimum magnification (95x) of my set-up was just too much for this object.

Comet P/2001 Q2 (Petriew). I was able to locate this recently discovered comet using the finder chart that a friend had provided. It was probably around 11th magnitude and very diffuse. There was only a slight hint of a coma, with the entire object looking nearly circular. The glow was generally brighter towards the center. Still, it was pretty neat to see an object so soon after its discovery.

M13, Hercules Globular Cluster, with nearby spiral galaxy NGC 6207. This is one of my favorite object pairings to show people, especially at a dark site. M13 always gets top billing while the spiral galaxy right next to it rarely gets noticed. This is my attempt to right this injustice, one person at a time.

M57, The Ring Nebula. This night was my first official observation of the central star. Direct vision was possible at times and was consistently seen with averted vision. Seen at 655x, but 490x was the best magnification for viewing the central star directly.

M27, The Dumbbell Nebula. Viewing with the O-III filter really helps to bring out the full expanse of this nebula. This is actually brighter than the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) but is twice a far (~900 l.y. versus ~450 l.y. for the Helix nebula). We viewed at 95x and also at 134x. The dumbbell is also easily seen with binoculars. 

M33, The Pinwheel Galaxy, was high in the sky when went over towards Triangulum to view the neighborhood. The view through the Nagler 31mm was very nice. This galaxy is absolutely huge! The galaxy took up almost the entire field of the eyepiece (82° field of view) at only 95x. The arms are very long and spiral back round themselves. This galaxy is great to view with larger aperture because the H-regions/nebulae within the galaxy are easily seen.

NGC 891, a beautiful edge-on galaxy in Andromeda was in the general area. The central dust lane was very remarkable using the 31mm Nagler (95x). Pushing the magnitude up to 327x (9mm Nagler) diminished the galactic glow a bit, but the central dust lane was still visible. The 12mm Nagler (246x) gave the best combination of magnification, contrast, and detail. 

M31, The Andromeda Galaxy, with satellite galaxies M32 and M110. I played a little trick on Mark by positioning the scope on M110 and telling him it was M31. His first comment was "Hmmmm." I knew he was expecting something better than what he sees in his 8" SC and that M110 in the 20" looks about the same. He figured out that he was looking at one of the satellite galaxies. I told him where to move the scope and then got the expected "Wow!" response. I pushed the magnification to 327x to try to look for some of the associated globular clusters but was unsuccessful.

NGC 253, The Sculptor Galaxy. Mark was unfamiliar with this galaxy and I told him it was one of my favorites. I actually think it is a more satisfying object than M31. This galaxy is large enough to be seen with binoculars. In the scope, lots of detail could be seen. 134x completely filled the field of view. We also viewed at 246x and 327x and just swept the scope back and forth to cover the entire galaxy. 

NGC 1365 in the "Fornax cluster of galaxies". This was also a first for me. NGC 1365 is a barred spiral and this was readily apparent through the eyepiece. This is a very dense galaxy cluster and we were able to make out 9 galaxies (NGC 1374, 1379, 1380, 1381, 1386, 1387, 1389, 1399, 1404) in one field of view (31mm).

NGC 6543, The Cat's Eye Nebula. Mark was a little disappointed because it didn't look like a cat's eye. It did have an oval shape but didn't have enough detail to make out the "eye" part. Increasing the magnification to 246x didn't really help.

NGC 6826, The Blinking Planetary Nebula, was awesome. Even at 95x it was so prominent that it didn't have its blinking property. The central star was clearly visible. Different magnifications, up to 327x, still kept both the nebulosity and central visible at all times.

NGC 7293, The Helix Nebula, is one of the closest planetary nebulae. As such it is very large. We used the O-III filter and pushed the magnification to 327x. The central star was visible as was a fair amount of detail at the edges. 

The Veil Nebula, NGC 6960 & NGC 6992. I just let Mark cruise around here on his own. I think looking at this impressed him the most. I remember him commenting about how it compared to the pictures he'd seen.

NGC 7662, The Blue Snowball planetary nebula. This was first viewed unfiltered to give Mark the ability to see its natural color. We also looked at this with the O-III.

B33, The Horsehead Nebula. Yes! I finally got to see this thing for the first time. Mark brought along an 1.25 inch H-Beta filter that we used on the 22mm Panoptic. This nebula really is much larger than expected (at 134x). Your eyes have to be dark adapted because this dark nebula is contrasted by such faint reflective nebulosity. I tried to view without the H-Beta filter but nothing could be seen. Still, it was a good feeling to say that I actually was able to see this and not have to rely on pictures as my only reference.

M42, The Great Orion Nebula. Unfiltered, the structure is stunning. was pretty spectacular with the eastern half of the dust cloud was really extended, much farther than I had remembered, especially considering that I wasn't using any nebula filters. The E and F stars of the Trapezium were visible using the 35mm (95x) and the 22mm Panoptic (134x). We didn't try any higher magnifications. Slight blue color seen at 134x (unfiltered). Definite blue and green hues seen at 95x (unfiltered).

M43, the back side of M42. The 20" pulls out lots of detail and Mark was impressed with how large this object actually is. The O-III filter helps to visualize the extent of this nebula.

Mark had looked at his list and commented that we didn't look at any double stars. The double-double in Lyra was too low in the horizon for any hope of resolving each doublet. Albireo, however, was still high enough so we swung over for a peek. This is a nice contrasting pair with a larger yellow star and the smaller blue companion.

Saturn was high in the sky near Aldebaran. The seeing wasn't perfect, evidenced by the transient blurring of the image. We viewed at 491x and 655x. I got to see another first, the inner crepe ring (C-ring). Cassini's division was obvious but I couldn't make out Enke's division. At least 4 satellites were visible, but I don't remember if more were present. The view was definitely 3-dimensional with the planet floating within the boundaries of the rings.

Jupiter was about 45 degrees above the eastern horizon and was also affected by the seeing conditions. We also viewed at 491x and 655x. Three satellites were visible. Europa, was on the far left side of the planet. Callisto and Ganymede were on the near right side of the planet. At times 5 bands were visible but there wasn't enough detail to see any structure within the bands. We came back to Jupiter about an hour later an saw that Io had appeared (between Callisto and Jupiter) and Ganymede's shadow was transiting the face of Jupiter.

Venus rose about 4:30 (1130 UT) and was in phase (I estimate about 70%). We couldn't see much because of its position on the horizon.

The tracking platform worked well, again with only a crude "this looks about close" polar alignment. Even when viewing at 655x the objects remained in the field of view. There was some slight drift but it would take about 15 minutes for it to be enough to where you had to reposition the telescope. Mark was impressed with how easy it was to set up and how well it kept objects centered.

Exhausted from sleep deprivation (I had been up for more than 24 hours) I was ready to pack up with dawn's approach. Mark was in much better shape than me - having had the day off from work and I think he had taken a nap or two earlier in the day. He certainly had more energy than I did when we were done.