Last night was a nightmare of clouds, strong gusting winds and (my own problems) trouble tracking and a mouse whose batteries died! Better luck to all. -- Joe ----- Original Message ----- From: Chrismo <djchrismo@gmail.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Cc: Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2012 9:55 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Hooky from SLAS wow! sounds like a fantastic night out! I'm hoping for one like that on Sunday! Thanks for sharing your experience! On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 9:35 PM, daniel turner <outwest112@yahoo.com> wrote:
Last night the CSC was predicting the best viewing conditions so far this year for deep sky objects. So I ditched the SLAS meeting and ran off to the high desert with my dob where I ran into a couple of like minded SLAS truants.
It was a grand night. Warm, calm, 100% clear
The following is my observing report. You should have been there.
Saturn with three moons is getting low earlier these days. Mercury was visable but too low in the west behind trees for telescope. M13 briefly and then a long look at M57 until the central star showed itself. M97 and M109 in the same low power field of view the eyes of the owl were more visable as the twighlight deepened. A blind stab into the Virgo cluster turned up M99 Then a look at the face of galaxies including the eyebrow M84, M86, NGC4388, NGC4387, NGC4402. Stopped by the stunning spindle NGC4565 for a long look. Didn't notice the companion. NGC6440 and NGC6445 are a Planetary Nebula and Globular cluster close together off of M23. Took the Milky Way tour starting at open clusters M6 and M7 then on to M8 the Lagoon and M20 the Trifid, M17 the Swan, M16 the Eagle where the pilars were faint but visable and ending at M11 the Wild Duck cluster with its three bright red Giants. NGC188 is an open cluster close to Polaris. It's large for a dob field of view and faint for 10x50 binoculars. Took a long look at M27 at it's outer nebulosity and the visited M71 the nearby sparse Globular. At the Veil looked NGC6960 plus CYG52 which is a beautiful double star. NGC40 is a small PN with a bright central star Looked at M5 with it's dense inner structure and bright companion star. Then went for the deep spiral structure in both M51 and M101. Looked a pair of small galaxies near Chara NGC4244 and NGC4214. M82 showed lots of structure but the Spiral arms of M81 were very dim in the twilight. The double Cluster in Perseus showed a half dozen red giants. Of course had to visit the Andromeda trioM31,M32,M110 Finally open cluster M52 and the nebulosity of the bubble NGC7635.
Clear skies.
DT _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
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-- Chrismo I fix things, all kinds of things... (801) 897-9075 _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".