Viewing Notes
November 10-11, 2001
Empire Ranch
(W110º 37' 48", N31º 47' 29")
Obsession 20 inch f/5 reflector

The TAAA held its club star party at Empire Ranch on Saturday evening. The turnout was fairly light, with only 8 or so telescopes and about 20 people total. Friday was very windy and had kicked up a lot of dust so I think people figured the viewing wasn't going to be all that great. They were right, at least until it got close to midnight. The skies were pretty transparent but the seeing was very poor. The deep sky stuff was good and I spent most of the first few hours looking at some of the usual stuff. Foolishly, I prepared for an all nighter and didn't think I would last that long because the seeing was so bad. But the seeing dramatically improved around midnight and allowed me to really see just how good my optics on the 20" are. Thank you, John Hudek (Galaxy Optics), for a job well done!

I was hoping to be able to see 8 of the nine planets (o.k., Earth was pretty easy - even with the poor seeing) but was disappointed in not being able to see Mercury and Venus before sunrise. Both were too close to the Sun, however I was able to observe a green flash as the Sun just began to appear over a mountain range.

Mars was again the first object  to view. The southern polar cap and hints of Sirtis Major were discernable. The dust storm seems to be clearing, but this doesn't really gain more detail because of the relative small disc size right now. The phase (~60%) only makes this size issue worse

Uranus was easy to spot in binoculars. Higher magnification on the Obsession showed the planet as a fuzzy blue orb and three of the satellites were visible, although the seeing didn't allow for too much direct vision observation of two of the fainter satellites.

Neptune was also easy to spot in binoculars and the Obsession showed the planet to be very nice at 135x. 245x was about the highest magnification the seeing would allow (Nagler 12mm).

M46 with the planetary nebula NGC 2438. The cluster is really too large to be viewed at 95x, but that's the smallest magnification I had available. The planetary was nice and bright, even without the use of an O-III filter.

M57, no central star visible this evening. The seeing and it's location near the sky glow of Tucson wouldn't allow for this. Still, many members got to see the oblong structure for the first time.

The Veil Nebula, east (NGC 6992) and west (NGC 6960) components viewed with an O-III filter. The east component got the most oohs and aahs as there is much more of this to view than the segment of NGC 6960. I showed the viewers how to move the scope around to follow the entirety of this component. It really is huge.

The Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888) viewed with an O-III filter. In the neighborhood of The Veil Nebula and a very nice object to view. The O-III brings out more detail than when viewing unfiltered.

Comet Linear with coma, approx magnitude 6.5. Not quite naked eye, but barely discernable with 10x30 binoculars. The 20" did an excellent job of capturing enough photons to show everyone that there is a distinct coma.

IC410 in Auriga. Dean Koenig from Starizona had just shown me a CCD image he had taken of this object so I thought I'd give it a try. I could make out some structure, but none of the pillars that were evident in Dean's image.

Flaming Star (IC 405), and the open clusters M36 and M38 were in the general area of IC405 so I took a moment to check them out. The nebulosity of  IC405 appears yellow-orange and is concentrated immediately surrounding the star.

Saturn was fantastic and a fellow observer reported he was viewing at 400x in his 10". I bumped the magnification up to 327x (Nagler 9mm) and found the planet to be stable for extended periods of time. I added a 2x barlow to increase the magnification to 655x. The Cassini division was holding up very nicely and there were periods were I was able to see Enke's minimum. The upper left of the planet was just beginning to cast a shadow on the rings and this intensified the 3D appearance of the orb.

Jupiter was good, with Io appearing from behind the disc. Seeing wouldn't really allow for much detail in the equatorial bands but some mottling was seen, along with a white inclusion in the Southern Equatorial Belt (SEB).

The Flame Nebula, without an O-III filter showed a lot of detail. I was in the area, attempting to show another member where the Horsehead Nebula was at, even though we had no chance to observe this without an H-beta filter.

M33. The H-III regions were apparent, but other detail in the spiral arms was not as noticeable this evening.

M31, A couple of volunteers from The Flandrau Science Center were in attendance and I wanted to show them M31 though the 20". I had visited their observatory and looked through the 16" cassegrain, commenting on how dim the galaxy seemed. In all fairness, the Flandrau Observatory is on the University of Arizona campus, near downtown Tucson, and suffers from urban light pollution. Both were impressed at how much more detail could be seen, commenting that M110 at higher magnification (I think 245x, 12mm Nagler) looked similar to what M31 looks like through their 16" scope. With 95x being the lowest magnification I could achieve I was barely able to get M31, M32, and M110 in the same field. Obviously, most of M31 wasn't in the field.

NGC 891, a nice edge-on galaxy in Andromeda. The central dust lane was clearly visible, but the galaxy itself was not as bright as I've seen in the past. This could have been a result of its relatively low (~30º) position in the sky.

NGC 253, The Sculptor Galaxy. Again, I spent the most amount of time viewing this magnificent galaxy. The 31mm (95x) does a very good job of framing the entire galaxy. The 22mm Panoptic (134x) gives a little too much magnification to fit the entire galaxy into the field. This galaxy was high in the Southern horizon and took magnification very well. The internal mottling/dust lanes were best viewed at 245x (12mm Nagler).

NGC 3077, I found this galaxy while hunting for M81 and M82. I had first thought it was M81 and realized I was wrong because I couldn't find M82 nearby. NCG 3077 looks similar in structure to M81, a spiral galaxy, but is smaller much fainter.

M81 was in the sky getting close to the light dome of Tucson, however hints of the spiral arms could be detected.

M82, The Cigar Galaxy, was best viewed using the 12mm Nagler (245x). The view at 327x was also good, but some of the contrast was lost.

The Moon rose about 3:30 (1030 UT) but didn't interfere with the views of Jupiter and Saturn. We viewed for about another 45 minutes and then got a short nap before sunrise.