Star party report - DSRSG 2003 (long)

The 2003 Deep South Regional Star Gaze - October 22-25
Percy Quin State Park, McComb, MS

Disclaimer -
This started as a simple observing report of a few things I saw while at
the DSRSG since I had to leave one day early, on Saturday afternoon.
However, from what I've heard there was no observing at all Saturday
night due to rain and clouds, so I guess I'm still qualified to give my
unofficial report of the event in general rather than dwell on too many
specific observing objects. I'm sure other attendees can add to this as
well as correct my inevitable errors.
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The 2003 DSRSG was one for the record books IMO, despite having clear
skies only two out of four nights. However, those two nights were
spectacularly clear in the context of the gathering's location, probably
the best I've ever seen in my 16 years of attendance there... At least
with the exception of the time in the late '80s when a tornado knocked
out power and we enjoyed quite a dark sky for a while, but I digress...

First of all, kudos go to Barry Simon of New Orleans, without whose
tireless efforts the DSRSG wouldn't be. He gets help every year from
individuals across the Louisiana / Mississippi / Alabama region, but as
Director, he's at the center of and key to all the activities that take
place. Although the last registration number I saw was 163, attendance
was reported to be nearer to 150. We were fortunate to have Rex and his
Astro Stuff arrive late Thursday and stay through Saturday afternoon. As
usual, the star gaze was a relaxing looonggg weekend of friends gathered
together.

As is sometimes typical, a run of absolutely beautiful weather for
several weeks prior to the event had me nervous - Were we using up our
allotment of clear skies? As it turned out, no, at least not totally.
Although daytime temperatures in the upper 80s were a little warmer than
typical, nights were mild. Both days and nights were crystal clear
through Friday noon, but telltale cirrus started showing up Friday
afternoon, just about the time our guest speaker, Phil Harrington,
arrived. Although conditions were less than ideal Friday night, Phil was
still able to conduct an abbreviated session on binocular astronomy on
the observing field for a while.

I really appreciate Phil making the trip for our event - It was great to
meet him, although I wasn't able to stay for his "official" presentation.
Prior to darkness Friday, he was kind enough to offer some very useful
collimation advice, as well as taking time to participate in an
interesting conversation with Russell Whigham, Rod Mollise and myself on
many of the astronomical products we've seen over the years (the good,
the bad and the possibly ugly!).

However, back to Wednesday -- Deep blue skies greeted us as we setup our
canopies on the observing field. Aside from the "love bugs" that seemed
to come out of the grass everywhere, it couldn't have been better. Later,
day turned to night and we were off. Much of my time was spent with old
favorites on that first night, and I only lasted until about 1am (typical
for me on a star party's first night). In no particular order: NGC 6888
(The Crescent Nebula), M31/32, an unsuccessful search for comet Encke,
M37, the Double Cluster, M1 and lots of other bright objects as I got
everything up and running, equipment-wise. With a UHC filter, the
Crescent Nebula was a pretty, round object in my Dob.

This year, I brought my Genesis and 14.5 Dob, in addition to an 8" Meade
Schmidt-Newtonian. Between lots of visiting, scope tweaking, comparisons
between the views in my Genesis and the TV102 Renaissance "next door",
not too much serious observing took place, but it was lots of fun. Jack
Huerkamp's beautiful 17.5 TeleKit on the other side of my location was
performing great, driven my a wireless system (who's name escapes me at
the moment) and the brain of SkyTools 2. He managed to maintain a line at
his scope most of the evening.

The Blue Flash nebula (NGC 6905) was a bright, beautiful sight in both my
Dob and Genesis. It had a distinctly wooly look to it, IMO.

Thursday was bright, crisp and clear when I walked back to the observing
field around 8am. Only Dave Halupowski was on the field at the time (as
far as I could tell), drinking in both his coffee and the beautiful
morning. During the day, the field continued to fill up and by 4:30, we
had a large crowd leaving for our traditional Thursday catfish dinner at
"Mr. Whiskers" just down the road from the park.

Thursday evening was even clearer and more contrastive than Wednesday.
Although the DSRSG location isn't (and never has been) exactly the
Arizona desert in terms of sky conditions, it was good nonetheless. I was
able to see naked eye stars slightly below 6th magnitude in the "square"
formed by alpha, beta, kappa and gamma Cass.

Using Brian Skiff's chart of stars surrounding M57 (from the September
2001 issue of Sky & Telescope), I was able to identify 15.3 and 15.4
magnitude stars, as well as one that appeared fainter than either in the
photograph. Unfortunately I've been unable to find any information on
that star. The observations were done with a 9mm Nagler in my 14.5 Dob,
giving 185x. A friend and seasoned observer, Darian Rachal, was able to
confirm the 15.3 observation a few minutes later.

Digging through some Megastar charts I printed a few years ago, I came
across NGC 7027 and 7048 in Cygnus. 7027 was a nice little bluish circle
in both my Dob and Jack's 17.5" scope, although expectedly it was
brighter in his, as was 7048.

Another chart was of the area of Abell 4 (PK144-15.1), a fairly faint
planetary in Perseus, just down the road from M34 -- By the way, doesn't
M34 have the neatest star patterns in it? With my Dob at both 185x and
76x, I was finally able to see it with averted vision (only) AND an OIII
filter. Take either away and it disappeared. I was soon back at Jack's
scope and we went looking... There it was, this time just barely
"holdable" with direct vision. SkyTools listed it as being magnitude 16.7
(!), which as much as I'd like to claim it, was a bit much to swallow. We
thought that maybe we were seeing the 15.5mv edge-on galaxy CGCG 539-
91... But why did it show up with an OIII and not without it? That didn't
sound like a galaxy to me. So, I went down the field to Walt Cooney's 25"
Obsession and we looked it up there. In Walt's 25", it was definitely a
direct vision object, in the right location, definitely NOT the galaxy.
Something wasn't right... After consulting Hynes' "Planetary Nebulae",
Walt was able to pin down its visual magnitude at 14.4, which at more
than 2 full magnitudes brighter than the photographic magnitude, answered
our riddle. Hynes is obviously a better observer than I, since his notes
indicate he saw it in a 10"! I think Jack was questioning my judgement in
looking for this object in the first place... :-)

Around 1:30am Friday, Rod and I were able to see (albeit minimally) the
Horsehead nebula at an altitude of about 35 degrees in my Dob, using an
H-Beta filter. I've actually seen it better in my 10" under really dark
skies, but there it was nonetheless.

Comet Encke was also finally located by Walt in his 25", looking at 250x
much more like a faint face-on galaxy than a comet... No wonder everyone
was having such a time locating this object in the (relatively brighter)
eastern sky!

Friday dawned bright and crisp and before long, folks were digging
through Rex's vast collecion of "stuff". For probably the first time in
my astronomical life, I managed to keep my cash outflow less than my
intake, but I'm sure that will change at next year's TSP... :-) In fact,
I'm already looking forward to both star parties next year!

--

-- Len Philpot - --
------ ----- http://philpot.org/ --

However, from what I've heard there was no observing at all Saturday
night due to rain and clouds

HI Len:

Which is putting it mildly. Barry Simon, Phil Harrington and myself were
literally trapped in the park pavillion by fierce thunderstorms and heavy rain
for a couple of hours before we were able to make our way back to our cabins.

Yes. Thursday night/Friday morning was something else. The view of ol' Horsey I
had in your scope is something I'll remember and treasure for a long time.
Thanks!

What else? NGC 6888, the Crescent, was _amazing_ in my C11. In a 22 Pan with
an OIII it was as good--make that "better"--than I've ever seen it. Dang! I'd
almost have to call it "bright!"

NGC 7331 was a real treat, with the main galaxy bright and detailed, and many
of its little companions winking in.

In the C11 from this site, Stephan's Quintet is often just a hazy patch. Not on
this night! The little suckers were easy to pick out at high power.

M31 was a mindblower in my Burgess 15x70 binocs. A MINDBLOWER! :-)

And on and on...IC nebulosity in Cygnus...you name it...quite a night!


Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
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