Date: 1 September 2003 (UT)
Time: 10:00-11:15 UT (4-5:15am MDT)
Location: near Gross Reservoir, west of Boulder, Colorado
Elevation: 7500 feet
Telescope: Criterion 6" f/8 Newtonian on a GEM
Eyepieces: 20/15/9/6mm Orion Expanse (61/81/135/203x), 7mm Ortho (174x)
Objects: IC 5217, NGC 7354, NGC 7635, Saturn

I went hiking on Sunday, and happened to be awake Monday morning
in time to do a quick run up to my nearest decent foothills site
in between the start of legal access at 4am and "-15 degree
twilight" at around 5:10am. (I generally use the time at which
the Sun reaches -15 degrees elevation as my marker for twilight.)
Labor Day has become the traditional end of "summer" here in the
U.S., and it is nice to be getting into the time of year when
this site is available for observing, although the more
desirable evening sessions of this length are still a month
away. I made the 25 minute drive and arrived at 3:58am (sorry).
It was about 50 degrees and breezy, the latter is typical for
this exposed site. I took a quick look at Mars, but it had
already dropped below 20 degrees and the scope still needed a
bit of cooling.

Surprisingly, I was able to see a magnitude 6.2 star in the
vicinity of M33, a few tenths better than usual. M33 was
presumably *just* beyond my eyesight. That limiting magnitude
only applies to the western half of the sky; it rapidly washes
out to the east toward Boulder and Denver. Seeing is usually
very poor here, but I managed to split a 1.6 arcsecond double.

My plan was to observe a few nebulae and Saturn. I started
with a real stinker, IC 5217. This is a very small planetary
nebula (less than 10 arcseconds), and without detailed charts
or an O III filter, I could not confirm the object although I
thought one of the 11th magnitude stars in the vinicity looked
a bit fuzzy.

NGC 7354 is another planetary nebula, this time on the Herschel
II list. This was very similar in size to Mars (25"), but
rather faint. It seemed round with no detail, but I really
couldn't be sure. The edges did not seem to be sharp, and there
was a star just off the west edge. It was better at 174x then
either 135x or 203x.

I had time to try one last DSO, NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula.
The nebula surrounds an 8th magnitude star, with 7th mag star
nearby. The sky may have been brightening ever-so-slightly in
morning wilight. I could not confirm a diffuse object
surrounding the star, or at least anything irregular that could
be distinguished from the haze of scattered light around all
stars that bright. There were hints of something, and I'll try
this one again with darker skies.

I would have taken a quick look at M52, just 40 arcminutes away,
but I wanted to look at Saturn for a bit before leaving. It was
about 35 degrees above the horizon by then, and since the seeing
was a bit above average for this viewing site, I was able to see
Cassini's Division in maybe 1/3rd of the ring system at high
power. (Don't laugh; Cassini has been undetectable many times
in below average seeing.)

Brian Rachford