Viewing Notes
March 9, 2001
Empire Ranch
(W110º 37' 48", N31º 47' 29")
Obsession 20 inch f/5 reflectorExtra noteworthy: Comet Ikeya Zhang
The TAAA held its club star party at Empire Ranch on Saturday evening. This time the turnout was great. About 20 - 25 telescopes and about 40 people.
The guy next to me had The Eskimo Nebula in his scope (13 inch Dob) and wanted to see how his image compared to the 20 inch. He was at about 200x so I popped in the 12mm Nagler for 246x. Surprisingly, the detail in his scope was just as good as in the Obsession, the only real difference being the brightness. The central star hung in real well at this magnification. A few minutes later he told me he was viewing it at 600x and that it still looked pretty good. I used the 9mm Nagler with the 2x Big Barlow to bump the magnification to 655x. The inner structure was even more evident and the central star still was very apparent. Another friend asked if I wanted to try using his 4.7mm Meade Ultrawide, 2x barlowed, for an effective magnification of 1,090x. Amazingly, the detail was still present as before, but with a larger image. We were all impressed that this object was taking this magnification so well. Another friend asked if I wanted to try his 3mm Radian, 2x barlowed, for an effective magnification of 1,708x. And the image held up very, very nicely. Well beyond the theoretical useful magnification limit of 50x per inch of aperture. The central star was still not blown out to mushiness and the inner structure was still very apparent.
Another aspect almost lost in this magnification frenzy was that the scope was actually tracking at this magnification. Tom Osypowski's platform was performing flawlessly, using only an "eyeball" alignment to Polaris. The magnification was too great for hand-guiding, and it took a bit of maneuvering to get the image in the center of the field. Even at 1,700x the image stayed in the field of view for enough time to allow 5 of us to take turns climbing up the ladder, google, and climb back down. I think this had to be at least 3 minutes of tracking, perhaps more. 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.
M42 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
NGC 891 washed out 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.
M81 wlars and the Obsession showed the planet to be very nice at 135x. 245x was about the highest magnification the seeing would allow (Nagler 12mm).
M82 fairly good detail 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.
NCG 2392, The Eskimo Nebula, I had to settle for 1200x, 5mm Takahashi eyepiece. I used the hand control on the platform to slew to the planetary under high magnification. The inner structure was awesome. Lots of wows from those that climbed up for a look.
Comet Ikeya Zhang with coma, approx magnitude 6. Not quite naked eye, but barely discernable with averted vision through the Zodiacal Light. Visible in 10x30 binoculars, with the tail. The 20" did an excellent job of capturing enough photons to show everyone that there was a lot of structural detail in the tail.
M51, The Whirlpool galaxy, 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. I was able to detect the Horsehead Nebula unfiltered, but was only successful in getting 2 others to see what I was talking about. One guy was convinced we were playing tricks on him. Unfortunately, he was the one who most wanted to see this, but I guess couldn't come to grips with not being to see the "picture" view.
M65 & M66. The H-III regions were apparent, but other detail in the spiral arms was not as noticeable this evening.
M104, A couple of volunteers from T
NGC 4565, a nice edge-on galaxy in A
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.
Venus was in the sky
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.