Behold, Comet 103P/Hartley 2

The cover of this month's S&T mentioned a visible comet was currently passing through Perseus so I decided to try to see it from our dark MO skies before leaving for the light polluted valley. I went out last night about 11:00 after we got back from Nashville and saw a dim grey blob about 25' in diameter about where S&T's chart said it should be. It was barely visible in my 7x50's but clear in my 8" dob. Tonight I went out about 8:30 with the moon still pretty high and about a quarter moon so the sky was pretty bright but cloudless and still. I was able to see 4th mag Eta Per unaided and most of the brighter stars of Perseus. The blob I saw last night was gone but seemed to be located between a pair of 7th mag stars near NGC 1444. A serpentine asterism of dim stars leading to a pair of stellar points that included 1444 along with Lam Per and 43 per were also in the field of my 7x50's. Current orbital elements for 103P/Hartley 2 placed it right on top of the stellar companion to NGC1444 but I didn't see any fuzzy blob there. The stellar companion was identified by CdC as HD 23800, a 7th mag star. If nothing else, I was able to figure out how to enter the orbital elements for a comet. The main 'trick' was to construct CdC's Perihelion T figure from several values in the orbital elements: 20101028.2598 comes from T 2010 Oct. 28.2598 TT. If all goes well, I'll try to continue to monitor Hartley 2 down in the valley. This one isn't as impressive as some in the past but comets are always cool!

M79 - the last and final

I couldn't sleep and it was nice and clear with no moon at 4:30 so I decided to go for it. Armed with my trusty 7x50's and 'distant suns' iPod app I slipped into my sweats and into the cold. There was Orion and Lupus, big and bright. I could see m79's companion HR1771, a mag 5 star, unaided. With my 7x50's I could make out a dim glow just to the north of it: M79! I quickly grabbed my 8" dob, noticed M79 clearly in the 9x50 raci, and bingo, there it was, a nice bright globular. M79 is only a few 1000 ly's away so it's one of the 3 brightest globulars in the Messier collection. I'm wondering why I never saw it before, particularly as it is so easy to find next to Orion. Maybe it's just dwarfed by all the goodies in Orion. I'll have to try for it again in the valley when it will be out at a much more opportune time of night. 4:30 is for the owls.

Two of the Final Three: M1 and M77

After our square dance Saturday night, the stars were nice and bright and there was no wind (finally) so I decided to try for M77. I've been watching for it during the past several nights as the moon has been waning. Tonight was the night. I decided to move my observatory to the south lawn in order to get around some trees that have been growing and obscuring the view from our deck. It worked out well. I put down our fiber mat that we use with the casita and that made a nice base to work on. Cetus was fairly bright although not as nice as in Colorado or the Mojave. I pointed the 8" red dot finder a little to the left of a line from 84 and Delta Cetus, fine tuned with the 9x50 raci and bingo, right on target. M77 was a faint fuzzy but clearly a galaxy. It's a barred spiral but I couldn't make out any particular structure. It was fairly large in my 27mm ep and the field stars matched CdC just fine. After admiring M77, I decided to go all the way and try for M1 in Taurus. I found Aldeberan and the 'V' of taurus ok but zet tau was behind a tree. I finally decided to move the scope a bit and get a clearer shot. I found Zet Tau which was visible unaided and set my red dot just above Zet Tau and then fine tuned with the raci by centering just to the left of the midpoint of a a line between Zet Tau and HR1831. Once again, I was right on target and the crab nebula presented itself as a nice size fuzzy that looked vaguely like a crab. Both of these were plenty bright for the 8" and I had no trouble viewing them. At times I was able to convince myself that I saw them in my 7x50 binocs but that might be a stretch. I finished off with a peek at the moons of Jupiter and saw three on one side and one on the other. I convinced myself that I was able to see the three in my 9x50 raci by blocking Jupiter's light with the cross hairs. Jupiter was quite bright and I could almost see a shadow cast by it's light. The Pleades was also beautiful as usual. Aldeberan was low and twinkling like crazy but a pretty red nevertheless. The Moon cooperated by staying below the horizon the whole time. I quit about 1:30 am. That leaves only one more Messier: M79, a globular just below Orion and will need to wait until later in the year. I'll see if I can find it with my ETX70.

September Messier Tour

I was surfing through some astronomy sites this afternoon and ran across Tony Cecce's monthly Messier Tour. This looked interesting even though I've logged all eight listed for September. They are all globular clusters which I enjoy observing: M13, M92, M14, M22, M28, M69, M70, M54. M13 and M92 in Hercules were easy in binocs although M92 was a bit harder and looked more like a star. I almost waited too long and M92 was about to disappear behind the house by the time I got to it. M13 is easiest since it is in the Hercules trapezoid and visible unaided. M92 can be found by spotting a little 'arrow' asterism just west of Iot Her, in fact it forms a rather flat isocoles triangle with Iot and Pi Her. The little arrow asterism points right at M92 which looks like a fairly bright star in my 7x50's. It was just 'below' a small square of 7th mag stars, one corner of which was a pair of stars. M22 is nice in my 7x50's and easy to find at the top of the Sgr teapot. M14 was visible in Ophiuchus but just barely, small and bright. M28, 69, 70, and 54 were all no-shows in binocs but easy enough in my 8" dob. I should probably try again and just look for a dim star where they ought to be. While I was near M22 I decided to try for some of the other globulars in Sagitarius and snagged IC6638 and IC6642, both small and dim even in my 8", definitely no-shows in binocs. I finished off the night with a peek at Jupiter's moons, three of which were visible, all on the same side. A single band could be readily seen. Just before shutting down I glanced over at the Andromeda Galaxy which was big and bright as usual, and the double cluster in Perseus which also was visible unaided, just not quite as bright as it was in Colorado.
Seeing was great, sky was steady, a little breeze, 70 degrees, 45% humidty, no dew, no moon, just a great night for observing.

Starting the Caldwell Catalog

Tonight was such a clear dark night that I just HAD to go out and gaze a bit. It was too early for my last remaining Messiers so I decided to a) see where Pluto was these days, and b) start on the Caldwell Catalog, Sir Patrick Caldwell-Moore's catalog of 109 interesting things to look at. I settled for C13, the Owl Cluster in Cassiopia since Cas is in a good position right now from my deck observatory. It's right near Phi Cas which is visible unaided and that made it really easy to find. I'll have to admit it's pretty impressive and even drew out a 'whoa' from me. It's alternately called the ET cluster or Dragonfly cluster and I saw both figures but prefer ET. While I was in the neighborhood, I moved over to M103. It's also easy to find and is pointed to by a little arc of three stars near Del Cas, the bright star at the apex of the obtuse V in Cas. I counted about 16 stars in the field of my 10mm ep. M103 is definitely better at 100x while C13 was best with the 27mm ep. I saw M103 as an upside-down office worker sitting in an office chair, like a guy getting ready to type up some code. I guess I could call it the Hacker Cluster. I also checked out Sagitarius and the area occupied by Pluto. If I want to try for it, it would be better a bit earlier in the evening before Sag goes behind a tree. All in all it was a good night if a bit chilly and a little dewey, a good night to just lay out and admire the night.

M74 and some really dark skies

We've been traveling through the western states the last couple of months and I took my ETX70 along, expecting to do some viewing in dark skies. Ha! I took it out exactly three times. The first was an impromptu star party at 'the ranch' in Montana with my brother in laws and their wives. The moon was pretty bright so we didn't get to see a lot. The skies are clear, no humidity to speak of, but aren't really all that dark. There's lots of light polution from the nearby town and neighbors. One other time, I couldn't get the thing leveled but the skies were really dark at Great Basin NP. The third time was at Mesa Verde with very good luck. I used the ETX's guided tour and was actually able to see several of the Messier galaxies. The best though was at Doc Hudler's cabin in the Wet Mountains of Colorado. The skies were so dark I saw a black cloud. Yup, with no light polution, clouds at night are actually black. Very startling. The Perseids were wonderful that dark night. I tried for M74 but just couldn't quite pull it out with my 7x50's. When I got back to Rolla, last night, I tried again after the moon had set about 3:00 am. Thin clouds (white this time) were rolling through but I managed to get in a quick peek at M74 with my 8" dob. The star field was right on and M74 was rather large with my 27mm ep but fairly dim. It would be nice to revisit this when the seeing conditions were better. I might be able to see some detail in this face on spiral galaxy.
With M74 gone, that only leaves 3 more Messiers.

My Equipment

Thought I'd add this while I'm at it and figure out later how to make it easier to find. I'm always trying to remember the specs on my equipment!
1. Orion Skyquest Classic Dob 8" 1200mm f5.9
2. Meade ETX-70 70mm 350mm f5
3. 27mm 25mm 10mm 2x barlow