CalStar Ver. 4.0 An observing report. ( Long )

CalStar Ver. 4.0

This was my fourth trip to the California Star Party. For me, it was three
nights to remember. I will certainly join the chorus of cheers to Mark
Wagner, Mike Koop and the S.J.A.A. for making this one of the best star
parties on the West Coast.

I arrived at Lake San Antonio at around 1:00pm after a pleasant three-hour
drive from San Francisco. The weather looked iffy most of the way, with
rather thick fog giving way to thin high clouds as I approached Salinas. But
by the time I got to the Lake Antonio turnoff the sky was clear, and I was a
happy man! :-)

Michelle Stone warmly greeted me as I pulled in, and my early arrival meant
that I had my pick of almost any shade tree to camp under I wanted. I staked
out my campsite, unloaded and set up my observing equipment just a short
walk away from were I would sleep and eat for the next three days and
nights. After about 45 minutes everything was set up to my liking so I
kicked back with a cold beer and contemplated the fun I was to have and the
things I wanted to see. Good friends, warm clear skies and a bottle of beer.
Aahh life is good!

Equipment:

"Old School" my TV Genesis SDF 4" APO Refractor on a Losmandy G9/GM8 EQ
Mount, "Big Dog" my 16" NightSky Truss Tube Dob riding on a Johnsonian Type
V EQ Platform. Sky Commander DSC's. Eyepieces, 35mm Panoptic, 14mm Meade
UWA, 8.8mm Meade UWA, 6.7 Meade UWA 5mm Tak LE, 3.5 Vixen SW, pairs of TV
8-24mm click stop zooms, 20 and 17mm plossls, 2x 2" Powermate, 4x 2"
Powermate, and my Denkmierer Deepsky Binoviewer with 1-1/4" OCS. MegaStar
and TheSky charting programs I also used SkyTools 2, which BTW is a very
nice observing tool. Night Sky Observer's Guide brought up the rear.

Thursday Night;

At twilight, I started by polar aligning the Losmandy and Johnsonian mounts.
One of the nice things about Star Parties like CalStar and SSP, is that you
only have to do this once. It's nice to able to leave you equipment set up
and ready to go for the next night.

The seeing conditions were pretty bad early on all three night Friday and
Saturday were better then Thursday but note by much. But after an hour
things got a lot better and by 10:00pm or so the conditions were quite good
and over the next two nights the night sky was excellent, and positively
magical between 3:30 and 5:00am. Sunday morning. I'm talking about the
steadiest skies I've seen in eight years of observing! More on that later...

As I said, Thursday was not that good for faint fuzzies early on so I spent
time looking at the bright stuff I've not seen since getting my 16" scope. I
set up the Denkmeier OCS (optical correction system) for use in a Newtonian,
which delivers a 1.2x magnification. With Big Dog sitting on the Johnsonian
EQ Platform and a pair of 26mm plossls EP's I was off running down the
bright M objects. M13, M2, M92, M15 and the Borg Cube, M11 were stunning in
the Denkmeier binoviewer and M8, M20 M27, M57 and especially M17 seemed to
float, suspended in 3D space. I must say here that unlike Jeff G., my
Johnsonian platform performs perfectly, keeping objects in the FOV for
better than 30 minute, and I don't have the tracking rate adjusted properly
yet. It's smooth, quiet and accurate.

By 12:00am the seeing had improved greatly, so I started going after the
faint stuff.

I looked at a number of faint galaxies in various parts of the sky with no
real plan in mind. I did revisit a very nice galaxy group in Andromeda:

NGC67 Elliptical Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, very small, round.
Magnitude: 15.2
RA: 00h 18m 14.9s Dec: +30°03'45" (Epoch 2000)

NGC68 Lenticular Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, large, 3 or 4 stars + nebula.
Magnitude: 13.9
RA: 00h 18m 18.2s Dec: +30°04'19" (Epoch 2000)

NGC71 Lenticular Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, very small, round.
Magnitude: 14.4
RA: 00h 18m 23.7s Dec: +30°03'46" (Epoch 2000)

NGC69 Type C Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, very small, round.
Magnitude: 15.3
RA: 00h 18m 20.5s Dec: +30°02'22" (Epoch 2000)

NGC72 Spiral Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, very small, round.
Magnitude: 14.7
RA: 00h 18m 28.4s Dec: +30°02'24" (Epoch 2000)

NGC72A Type C Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, very small, round.
Magnitude: 15.3
RA: 00h 18m 34.4s Dec: +30°02'09" (Epoch 2000)

NGC74 Spiral Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, small, extended, last of 6.
Magnitude: 15.5
RA: 00h 18m 48.7s Dec: +30°03'39" (Epoch 2000)

The last one, NGC74 was not bagged until Friday night when the seeing was
much better. I love seeing multiple galaxies in an eyepiece field. This
group is very nice and quite easy to find. Located in Andromeda about 2-1/2
degrees from Alpheratz on a line towards 31-Delta Andromedae.

At around 2:00am the fog started to roll in so I covered my stuff and headed
for my van for a well-deserved rest. It had been a long day and a good start
for this three-night adventure.

When I woke Friday morning, about 10:30 or so the fog had just started to
burn off. This was a welcomed change form SSP because it meant that one
could sleep late and not be a "Framer John Award" candidate.

More people started showing up and I spent part of the day looking at some
very nice Sun spot groupings. I was rather surprised to see so many spots on
the surface of the Sun because the last time I looked the Sun's disk was
just a blank slate.

More beer, more friends and more food.

Nightfall.

After a soft start, Friday night ended up being about 30% better than
Thursday night in terms of seeing and transparency. After showing some other
observers the view through Big Dog using the binoviewers I went diving for
more faint galaxies.

First stop Stephen's Quintet. With the Parrcor in place and using the Meade
8.8 UWA EP at 240x the Quintet was separated into 5 distinct galaxies with
NGC 7318A being the most difficult bag. I then move over to the Dear Lick
group. Using the 14mm Meade UWA at 151x NGC 7331 was a beacon and its three
companions were pretty obvious in the 16"er. However, there was another
galaxy on the opposite side of 7331. My newest piece of astro software,
Skytool 2.0 says that it was NGC 7325. TheSky says 7325 is a double star.
And Mark said it did not exist, even though Mimi and Richard Navarrete
thought they could see it as well. MegaStar plots a galaxy, PGC 69281 Mag.
15.7 near where SkyTools indicates 7325 is located. Can anyone clear this
up? Steve G.

I then spent some time viewing Abell 194 in Cetus. Some of these were very
difficult, and there were many I could not detect. Here are some of the ones
I nailed.

NGC545 Lenticular Galaxy
Dreyer description: Stellar, westward of double nebula.
Magnitude: 13.2
RA: 01h 25m 59.2s Dec: -01°20'28" (Epoch 2000)

PGC05314
Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 14.1
RA: 01h 25m 51.6s Dec: -01°19'04" (Epoch 2000)

NGC543 Lenticular Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, extremely small.
Magnitude: 15.1
RA: 01h 25m 50.0s Dec: -01°17'34" (Epoch 2000)
Azm: 87°21'34" Alt: -05°28'35"

NGC548 Elliptical Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, extremely small.
Magnitude: 14.7
RA: 01h 26m 02.4s Dec: -01°13'33" (Epoch 2000)

NGC535
Dreyer description: Very faint, very small, 1st of 3.
Magnitude: 14.8
RA: 01h 25m 31.3s Dec: -01°24'30" (Epoch 2000)

UGC1003
Lenticular Galaxy
Other ID: CGCG385-126
Other ID: PGC05307
Magnitude: 14.9
RA: 01h 25m 44.5s Dec: -01°27'26" (Epoch 2000)

UGC984
Lenticular Galaxy
Magnitude: 14.6
RA: 01h 25m 29.9s Dec: -01°29'50"
RA: 01h 25m 18.0s Dec: -01°31'05" (Epoch 2000)

NGC538 Spiral Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, small, moderately extended, faint star
north.
Magnitude: 14.6
RA: 01h 25m 38.0s Dec: -01°31'49"
RA: 01h 25m 26.1s Dec: -01°33'04" (Epoch 2000)

NGC530 Lenticular Galaxy
Dreyer description: Extremely faint, small, moderately extended, faint star
southeast; = IC 106.
Magnitude: 14.0
RA: 01h 24m 41.5s Dec: -01°35'12" (Epoch 2000)

BTW for anyone that uses a laptop in the field I highly recommended a great
windows help file that is freely available form the Hello Northern Sky web
site. Among other nice things included in this file is what appears to be
the entire NGC catalog as observed by our very own Steve Gottlieb. See
below.
HNS_DEEP.HLP: Help file v3.2.1 dated 2002-3-14. (2.2 Mbytes) With friendly
permission of 1000plus.com, Steve Coe and Steve Gottlieb, more then 2500 A4
pages of deep sky observations in Windows help file format. Contains about
10,000 observations.

I ended my observing session with Mars. Using "Old School" and the
Binoviewer with the OCS set up for 3x power I popped in the TV 8-24mm click
stop zoom EP's in the scope. I was rewarded with a very nice view of the Red
Planet. The South Polar Ice Cap certainly shrinking fast it appeared very
small, evening at higher powers but very well defined. Other observed
features included Mare Sirenum, Mare Tyrrhenum, Elysium and a very bright
spot not far from the South Pole. The next night David Kingsley showed me
the same feature and said it was called the Eye of Mars. I had a better view
of it in his larger scope with a red filter.

I was spent! It was about 3:00am when I finally turned in. As I was falling
off to sleep I sadden to think I only had one more night left.

After breakfast and a little cleanup it was time for more beer, more friends
and more food.

Nightfall.

Saturday Night was the best of all! Another 30% jump in seeing and
transparency, of which I took full advantage!

Even thought the sky started out a little soft by 9:30 the sky was as good
as it had been at its best the night before. After paying homage to some
more of the bright stuff I move the big scope to the Perseus. I was after
the super cluster!

What a view! With NGC 1272 centered in the 14mm UWA I was able to count 17
galaxies in the surrounding field! I was in a state of bliss, what a night!
Next up, the HII regions in M33. Using the 6.7 Meade UWA EP,NGC 604, 595,
592 and 588 Ic's 136, 135, 131, 143 and 142 were all seen. I suspected the
galaxy PGC 5899 but could not confirm it.

I took a slight break from the faint stuff and use Old School to look at
some big stuff. I borrowed an OIII from Mark and using the 35mm Panoptic I
had fabulous views of the Vail and North American Nebula. Both were caught
in their entirety with the wide field the TV Genesis offers. Others who had
the chance to take a look were likewise blown away by the views.

I changed the eyepiece from the 35 Pano to a Vixen 3.5mm Super Wide and
looked at a few double stars. 52 Cygni, the Double Double the Nose of the
Dolphin among others were very nice but one in particular was a standout,
55-Zeta1 Aquarii. This is a real beauty. Equally bright pair with about 2.4
arc sec. separation cleanly split. I really am blessed having such great
observing tools.

I went back to my faint fuzzies. I spent about an hour just cursing the area
near the head of the fish. The best group I found was; The Pegasus I Cluster
a nice mix of galaxy types and magnitudes

NGC7619 Elliptical Galaxy
Dreyer description: Considerably bright, pretty small, round, pretty
abruptly brighter middle.
Magnitude: 12.3
RA: 23h 20m 14.7s Dec: +08°12'23" (Epoch 2000)

NGC7626 Elliptical Galaxy
Dreyer description: Considerably bright, pretty small, round, pretty
abruptly brighter middle.
Magnitude: 12.3
RA: 23h 20m 42.4s Dec: +08°13'02" (Epoch 2000)

NGC7631 Spiral Galaxy
Dreyer description: Very faint, very small.
Magnitude: 13.6
RA: 23h 21m 26.8s Dec: +08°13'05" (Epoch 2000)

MCG1-59-58
Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 15.2
RA: 23h 21m 05.6s Dec: +08°06'10" (Epoch 2000)

UGC12518
Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 15.5
RA: 23h 20m 08.1s Dec: +07°55'26" (Epoch 2000)

NGC7611 Lenticular Galaxy
Dreyer description: Faint, small, round, triangle with 2 stars of magnitude
19 north.
Magnitude: 13.9
RA: 23h 19m 37.0s Dec: +08°03'50" (Epoch 2000)

IC5309 Spiral Galaxy
Dreyer description: Faint, small, fan-shaped, star attached south.
Magnitude: 14.7
RA: 23h 19m 11.2s Dec: +08°06'25" (Epoch 2000)

UGC12510
Elliptical Galaxy
Magnitude: 14.0
RA: 23h 19m 38.1s Dec: +08°15'25" (Epoch 2000)

NGC7608 Spiral Galaxy
Dreyer description: Very faint, pretty small, little extended, little
brighter middle.
Magnitude: 14.9
RA: 23h 19m 14.0s Dec: +08°20'25" (Epoch 2000)

The finally!

For those shallow sky observers that did not make it to CalStar or those who
did come but went to sleep before 3:30am you might not want to read the rest
of this report.

The object was Saturn, the seeing was the best I have ever experienced in
eight years of observing. The view knocked my socks off and curled my
toenails!

I started by using the 4" APO with the 3.5mm super wide EP at 154x. The view
was exquisite, Saturn hung there steady as a rock, begging for more
magnification. Again I used the Binoviewer with the OCS set up for 3x power
I popped in the TV 8-24mm click stop zooms set to the 8mm position yielding
about 260x. I looked into the Binos' and just sat, motionless and
speechless. I could hardly believe my eyes! Encke Division or Gap as some
call it, was automatic! Cassini's Division appeared jet black and wider than
I've ever seen it; the faint inner "C" or crepe ring was not faint on this
night! It was easily seen to both sides of Saturn's golden orb. And to top
it off the view craved more magnification!

Well, "Old School" had topped out in the mag. department but just behind me
I heard the "Big Dog" howl. Not wanting to settle for the Silver or the
Bronze, I went for the Gold! I grabbed the 2" 4x Powermate and put in the
Feather Touch focuser, I then put the 8.8mm UWA EP in the Parracor and then
the Parracor eyepiece combo in the powermate. I reset the EQ platform,
trained the Telrad on my quarry and sat down, a good thing too, because had
I remained standing I would have keeled over like a punch-drunk fighter! At
961x Saturn was sharp as a tack! The crepe ring could now be seen as an
opaque curtain in front of the Saturn's disk with the disk itself still
visible beyond! The muted color variations on the planet's disk observed
through the smaller scope were now transformed into a Technicolor dream I
can hardly describe!

It was 4:30am and there were only two people observing at my end of the
field. Steve Kennedy and Myself, neither of us made a sound. We were both
entranced by this wonderfully rare view.

When I got into this hobby about 8 years ago, my first scope was an Orion
Short Tube 80. After looking at the moon for several nights in a row I
decided that Astronomy must be the most boring hobby in the world. As I was
about to turn in for the night I looked up and saw a very bright star and on
a whim I pointed the little 80mm scope with 17mm EP at this star. It was not
a star! As tiny as the image was, I could plainly see that it had rings, it
was Saturn. And the very first thought to come into my mind was, "I need a
bigger scope!" Well I have many bigger scopes now and since that first
viewing of Saturn Astronomy has never been a boring hobby.

In all, I had spent about 1-1/2 hours looking at this marvelous site, but in
just a few hours it would be time to hit the road for home. I took the time
to break down all my equipment so as to get an early start on packing. After
finishing up I headed for my van and a few hour sleep. As I passed by Steve
Kennedy's 24" scope I saw him way up on the ladder still glued to the
eyepiece. I asked for a goodnight peak and he obliged, as I climbed the
ladder he told me he had a 7mm Neglar in a 2x Barlow yielding something like
1250x!

This is the only way to describe the view I had through the 24" scope! And
the only real difference I can remember of the view through the 16"er was
that the color of Saturn's colored bands were not as sharply defined as
seen through Steve's scope and the image linked here. Sorry Rich. :-)

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpe...162_modest.jpg

Steve was in awe of the sky conditions that night, as were the rest of us
diehards who just could not get enough of CalStar 4.0

Rashad