9/29/11
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Sunday, September 29, 2011

Location:    TDS

Weather:    Pleasant (65); clear, no wind

People:      Bob Austin.

Goals going in:

Find Comet Garradd, see M101 (Supernova).  See stuff I didn't see last week.  Practice finding.  Test out Curies new Sky Prodigy.

Summary

Beautiful sky. Summer Milky Way. Bagged the comet.  Great view of Western Veil Nebula (Witch's Broom).  Who needs a computer when you have a Bob Austin as guide?

Highlights:

Really good night. 

On the way there, I saw a big freaking owl standing near the centerline of the road.  I passed within 5 feet of it without it flying off.  I turned the van around a pulled up near it.  It stayed there looking into the brush.  I was able to take this blurry eight-second hand held shot (included here more to jar my memory than show a startling example of an owl).  He must have been over 2-feet tall.  After a while he flew to the top of the pole at the edge of the frame.  Cool.

Got there after dark. 

First thing: finding the Comet.  Having actually printed a finder chart from Starry Night ahead of time, I found it at first attempt (of course, the great sky was very helpful).  Fuzzy, small, warped coma rather than anything tail-like.  (McNaught was far more interesting to me a few yeas ago, a gossamer mushroom).

Looked at M101, faint due to its low altitude.  Was that star the nova or a foreground star?  Probably the latter.  Andromeda again impressive, Pinwheel looked like it did Sunday: visible.

Great View of Veil Nebula.  Really good contrast with the 17.5" mirror and anOIII filter.

Bob asked if I had seen it.  I said, "I think so."   That's never a good sign.  He went and got an OIII filter and found it (I couldn't find it as it was in "the Dobsonian Hole".  LOL!  It's hard to precisely move the scope when you've very close to the zenith).  Had to get a ladder, too.  The amazing thing about that nebula is that it's unlike anything else I'd ever seen well.  A linear nebula, three FOV's wide (even with my widest eyepiece).  Great contrast and knotty tendril detail.  Here's Bob's amazing image of it.

I'll have to dig out my OIII filter; I'd never been impressed before.  Apparently a big mirror makes it far more useful.   It made the PacMan Nebula visible as well as the Crescent Nebula.  The Veil and Helix are visible without the OIII, but it far more impressive with it (the Veil, in particular).

Collimation lost itself over the night.  Bob recommended "shaking" the scope when horizontal to let the sling find a balance point after it rotates on the drive or setup.

The SkyProdigy 130 aligned itself in 3 minutes and was ready to go.  It took me to a glob right away, a bit off-center, but within the 25-mm field-of-view.  The menu was very different from my Celestrons and Orions, so I tabled it for the night.  I'll follow up from home soon.

Excellent night.