OR: Pease 1 - Curses, Foiled Again!

OR: Pease 1 - Curses Foiled Again!

NELM 5-4
Sky Conditions: Clear (w/ high overcast later on in the evening)
Seeing: Pickering 3-2
Transparency: poor
Equipment: 15" F5 StarSplitter (Swayze), Paracorr, 13mm nagler t6
(~170x), 9mm Nagler (~250x) 9mm ortho (~250x), 7mm ortho (~315), 3-6
zoom at 6mm (~370x)

Date: 9/21/03
Time: 8:30pm EST to 10:00pm EST

Observer: Tom Trusock

Target: Pease 1 in M15

My recent forey into Andromeda and the examiniation of remote globular
clusters reminded me that Pease 1 has also been on my list for years.
Pease 1, it's true nature discovered in 1928 (by Francis Pease) is a
~15mag planetary nebula associated with M15. With the ~15th mag
andromedean globs such a simple catch, surely Pease 1 would easily
fall to the 15" as well - or such were my deluded thoughts.

A peek outside told me that conditions were not at all auspicious this
evening, with intermittent high haze and clouds flowing across the sky
hours before sunset. Still, the early evening cleared off somewhat,
and there was promise that it would improve for a short while. The
long range forcast called for clouds and rain, so if I was to attempt
this, it would have to be in early evening.

With this in mind, I visited paid a quick visit to one of my (new)
favorite sites: Doug Snyder's Planetary Nebula Observers Home Page
(http://www.blackskies.com/index1.html) to dig up his Pease 1 finders
chart's found he http://www.blackskies.com/peasefc.htm

As I set up the 15", I noticed the milky way becoming more and more
defined, it looked like it would be a good night I might beat the
odds - at least long enough to nail Pease 1.

Quickly locating M15, I familarized myself with the region for a short
while, identifying my cardinal directions, and looking for landmarks
spelled out in the finder charts. I quickly found that the 2nd finder
chart (on Doug's page) was more useful to me than the first in finding
the keystone that Doug recommends you start your star hop from.

Doug recommends you start from four stars in a keystone on the nw
corner of the planetary, and labels the top two A and B. From here,
he recommends you extend A and B out towards the globular until you
reach C (which is about the same magnitude) and from there make a
(nearly) right angle (again, towards (or almost parallel to) the
globular) to find D which again, is about the same magnitude. Then
connect A and D to find E. Pease 1 then lies 28 arcseconds from E.

After several minutes of searching, I finally found all four stars in
the keystone. They were usually visible with averted vision, even at
semi-low powers (~170x ). When I started off, the 13mm (~170x)
provided decent resolution across the face of the cluster but as the
night wore on, it wound up going downhill rapidly. Attempts to
switch to 370x quickly showed that this was too much power for the
conditions - the cluster became a blur, and without tracking, I
quickly lost my place as I tried to reconcile between the finder
charts and the view through the scope. Dropping down to the 9mm ortho
and 250x, helped somewhat - at least with the resolution. The FOV was
still tiny - too tiny, so in went the 9mm nagler t1. With the wider
FOV, I could spend more time switching between the charts and the
eyepeice. At this power (250x) Doug's C and D stars were easy finds
as well, but I began to have difficulty when I lined up A and D to
search for E. It was about this time that a thin layer of high
altitude clouds moved in and dropped my NELM from 5 to 4. Suddenly
every thing became far more difficult to spot. I could get E with
averted vision, but every time I glanced at the charts, I would loose
it and have to start at the keystone again. Then when I finally did
manage to hold the position, the sky conditions would not support
enough magnification to split the cluster as I tried to get in closer
and identify pease 1 iteself.

While Pease 1 should be findeable in the 15" (I have heard reports of
folks finding it in apertures as small as 12 inch under similar skies
as I have), I need to have better skies than I did the other night.
Better transparency would certainly have made E easier to hold, and
better seeing would have allowed me to use higher magnifications to
split the cluster apart.

Tracking would also be a definite plus, but that's just not an option
for me at this point.

I was foiled last night, but you can bet sooner or later I'll get that
little guy.

For anyone interested in reading more about Pease 1, Leos Ondra has
written an intersting article that can be found he
http://astro.ago.uni-lj.si/mirror/ww...os/pease1.html

Clear Skies

Tom T.

"Tom Trusock" wrote in message
s.com...

OR: Pease 1 - Curses Foiled Again!

NELM 5-4
Sky Conditions: Clear (w/ high overcast later on in the evening)
Seeing: Pickering 3-2
Transparency: poor
Equipment: 15" F5 StarSplitter (Swayze), Paracorr, 13mm nagler t6
(~170x), 9mm Nagler (~250x) 9mm ortho (~250x), 7mm ortho (~315), 3-6
zoom at 6mm (~370x)

Date: 9/21/03
Time: 8:30pm EST to 10:00pm EST

Observer: Tom Trusock

Target: Pease 1 in M15

My recent forey into Andromeda and the examiniation of remote globular
clusters reminded me that Pease 1 has also been on my list for years.
Pease 1, it's true nature discovered in 1928 (by Francis Pease) is a
~15mag planetary nebula associated with M15. With the ~15th mag
andromedean globs such a simple catch, surely Pease 1 would easily
fall to the 15" as well - or such were my deluded thoughts.

A peek outside told me that conditions were not at all auspicious this
evening, with intermittent high haze and clouds flowing across the sky
hours before sunset. Still, the early evening cleared off somewhat,
and there was promise that it would improve for a short while. The
long range forcast called for clouds and rain, so if I was to attempt
this, it would have to be in early evening.

With this in mind, I visited paid a quick visit to one of my (new)
favorite sites: Doug Snyder's Planetary Nebula Observers Home Page
(http://www.blackskies.com/index1.html) to dig up his Pease 1 finders
chart's found he http://www.blackskies.com/peasefc.htm

As I set up the 15", I noticed the milky way becoming more and more
defined, it looked like it would be a good night I might beat the
odds - at least long enough to nail Pease 1.

Quickly locating M15, I familarized myself with the region for a short
while, identifying my cardinal directions, and looking for landmarks
spelled out in the finder charts. I quickly found that the 2nd finder
chart (on Doug's page) was more useful to me than the first in finding
the keystone that Doug recommends you start your star hop from.

Doug recommends you start from four stars in a keystone on the nw
corner of the planetary, and labels the top two A and B. From here,
he recommends you extend A and B out towards the globular until you
reach C (which is about the same magnitude) and from there make a
(nearly) right angle (again, towards (or almost parallel to) the
globular) to find D which again, is about the same magnitude. Then
connect A and D to find E. Pease 1 then lies 28 arcseconds from E.

After several minutes of searching, I finally found all four stars in
the keystone. They were usually visible with averted vision, even at
semi-low powers (~170x ). When I started off, the 13mm (~170x)
provided decent resolution across the face of the cluster but as the
night wore on, it wound up going downhill rapidly. Attempts to
switch to 370x quickly showed that this was too much power for the
conditions - the cluster became a blur, and without tracking, I
quickly lost my place as I tried to reconcile between the finder
charts and the view through the scope. Dropping down to the 9mm ortho
and 250x, helped somewhat - at least with the resolution. The FOV was
still tiny - too tiny, so in went the 9mm nagler t1. With the wider
FOV, I could spend more time switching between the charts and the
eyepeice. At this power (250x) Doug's C and D stars were easy finds
as well, but I began to have difficulty when I lined up A and D to
search for E. It was about this time that a thin layer of high
altitude clouds moved in and dropped my NELM from 5 to 4. Suddenly
every thing became far more difficult to spot. I could get E with
averted vision, but every time I glanced at the charts, I would loose
it and have to start at the keystone again. Then when I finally did
manage to hold the position, the sky conditions would not support
enough magnification to split the cluster as I tried to get in closer
and identify pease 1 iteself.

While Pease 1 should be findeable in the 15" (I have heard reports of
folks finding it in apertures as small as 12 inch under similar skies
as I have), I need to have better skies than I did the other night.
Better transparency would certainly have made E easier to hold, and
better seeing would have allowed me to use higher magnifications to
split the cluster apart.

Tracking would also be a definite plus, but that's just not an option
for me at this point.

I was foiled last night, but you can bet sooner or later I'll get that
little guy.

For anyone interested in reading more about Pease 1, Leos Ondra has
written an intersting article that can be found he

http://astro.ago.uni-lj.si/mirror/ww...os/pease1.html

Clear Skies

Tom T.



Hi Tom,

I feel your pain. I've been butting my head against the Pease 1 wall for
years.


Martin

Pease 1 - Curses, Foiled Again!

PLEASE don't curse! It might ruin the lives of children everywhere.

Doug Hosey (Swearer Extraordinaire)