The California Nebula is large and faint but an easy starhop. I assume Robert had an h-beta filter to see it. Didn't the size of Abell 21 (Medusa Nebula) just blow you away? I found it last January with a 20" Starmaster and 31mm Nagler. The "horseshoe shape" was very apparent. Jim and I did some observing Thursday night because it was calm and clear. We looked at some planetaries in Cassiopea including Abell 6, Abell 82, Abell 84, IC 289, and IC 1747. Friday night was too windy for us so we decided to stay home and watch the baseball game, which was rained out. I finished off my roll of film Thursday night and am waiting for the results on Monday. I got a good view of the Pleaides and the Hyades before I packed in the 4" scope. Debbie
From: Richard Tenney <retenney@yahoo.com> Date: 2004/10/16 Sat PM 08:00:38 MDT To: Utah-Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com>, UVAA <uvaa@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Dawn Patrol: observing report from the gravel pit
For those of you who were sitting at home, or surfing the Wedge (and I don't mean Newport Beach CA) last evening, early this morning I joined Tyler Allred (Orem) at the gravel quarry about 1 a.m. (sorry I missed the folks from BYU who were up earlier), and was later joined by Joan, Lowell, and Robert Fisher around 2 for some early winter fun. A nagging breeze kicked up just before I arrived, but in spite of the scope moving on its own a little too often, we managed to find some pretty neat stuff. For one thing, a welcome plethora of meteor activity (are we close to a shower?) all night. In addition to adding a few new H-400 objects to my log book (some open clusters in Taurus, a few diffuse nebulae and a small Planetary nebula in Orion), and Stephens Quintet, we were treated to the California Nebula (huge!), Abell 21 (the medusa nebula) and Hubble's variable Nebula (all firsts for me) among other deep-sky gems, along with a very cool "3-D" view of M42 in Robert's new AP Traveler with the Denkmeier binoviewer fitted with 24mm Panoptics -- an experienced not to be missed. Half the fun up there was listening to Joan's frequent ooohs and aaahs ;o) -- I love her enthusiasm. Aside from an unfortunate mishap with my DSC's hitting the pavement too hard (:o( it was a fun way to greet the dawn... now if I can just get caught up on my rest... <yawn>.
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