The Witchhead Nebula and Some Other Interesting Objects, 2005/2/6 UT

I spent Saturday night, 2005/2/6 UT, at a dark sky site that I had not
been to previously. It was only a 43 mile, 55 minute trip for me,
about half an hour less than the two best Astronomical Society of
Harrisburg dark sites. I learned about this site while attending the
Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers Solar Saturday earlier in the day.

Present were over a dozen observers from the Chestmont Astronomical
Society (see http://www.chesmontastro.org/ ) and the Delware Valley
Amateur Astronomers (see http://www.dvaa.org ) and a healthy variety of
telescopes, among them Karl Krassley's 22" TeleKit Dob, at least two
20" Obsession Dobs (one belonging to fellow DVAA member Al Lamperti),
an 18" ServoCAT Obsession Dob, a 16" Dob, a 12.5" TeleKit Dob, a 10"
Discovery Dob, and a 10" ATM Dob.

The site was surprisingly dark for being relatively nearby and the
transparency was excellent. I could see M35 without optical aid when
it was near the zenith. The Horsehead Nebula (B33) was a fairly easy
target through Al's H-beta filtered 20". The California Nebula (NGC
1499) was not at all difficult through my 101mm Tele Vue refractor
mated with Al's H-beta filter and my 35mm Panoptic. Comet Machholz Q2
was within naked-eye visibility and its two tails were visible through
my refractor at moderately low powers.

I looked at many deep-sky objects as well as the comet, some binary
stars, Saturn, and Jupiter during the course of approximately five and
a half hours. M1 was as good as I've ever seen it through the 18"
Obsession. The extragalactic globular cluster G1 (Mayall II) in M31
was an almost stellar fuzzy spot at high magnification through Al's
Obsession.

I saw the new supernova in NGC 2146 in Camelopardalis (see
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/n2146.html for an image of
this interesting peculiar galaxy) through Karl's scope but it was
definitely an averted vision object. M42 was very bright and colorful.
I also had a look at NGC 2392 (the Eskimo Nebula) at over 500x through
the 22". My last view of the night was through Karl's scope and it was
a very fine one: M51 and its companion NGC 5195, with M51's spirality
being clearly apparent.

The high point of the night for me came when I logged IC 2118 (the
Witchhead Nebula) with my 101mm Tele Vue refractor and 35 Panoptic. It
was the first time that I've seen this aptly named reflection nebula
through a telescope. IC 2118 appeared as a large, faint glow in
Eridanus to the west of Rigel and to the south of Cursa (browse
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/B_WINTER/IC2118.HTM for more on the
Witchhead Nebula).

I'll undoubtedly be paying the State Game Lands 110 parking lot another
visit in the not too distant future.

Dave Mitsky

"Dave Mitsky" wrote in message
ups.com...

The high point of the night for me came when I logged IC 2118 (the
Witchhead Nebula) with my 101mm Tele Vue refractor and 35 Panoptic. It
was the first time that I've seen this aptly named reflection nebula
through a telescope. IC 2118 appeared as a large, faint glow in
Eridanus to the west of Rigel and to the south of Cursa (browse
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/B_WINTER/IC2118.HTM for more on the
Witchhead Nebula).

Hi Dave,
Glad to see you got the Witchhead. I've yet to get a hint of it, but I'll
keep trying. Was it visible in the large scopes or is lower mag required?

Peace,
Jon

Jax wrote:
"Dave Mitsky" wrote in message
ups.com...

The high point of the night for me came when I logged IC 2118 (the
Witchhead Nebula) with my 101mm Tele Vue refractor and 35 Panoptic.
It
was the first time that I've seen this aptly named reflection
nebula
through a telescope. IC 2118 appeared as a large, faint glow in
Eridanus to the west of Rigel and to the south of Cursa (browse
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/B_WINTER/IC2118.HTM for more on the
Witchhead Nebula).

Hi Dave,
Glad to see you got the Witchhead. I've yet to get a hint of it, but
I'll
keep trying. Was it visible in the large scopes or is lower mag
required?

Peace,
Jon

Jon,

The Witchhead Nebula is quite large as I'm sure you know. Such objects
are usually more easily seen through rich-field telescopes. I didn't
try to view IC 2118 with any of the other telescopes present that night
but I have attempted it in the past without success. The last time was
with a 14.5" Starmaster a couple of months ago.

Dave Mitsky