Wonderful, Jay! I'm glad you had such a good night and I'm looking forward to seeing the sketches. Best wishes, Joe --- On Fri, 4/29/11, Jay Eads <jayleads@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Jay Eads <jayleads@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Pit n Pole To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Friday, April 29, 2011, 5:15 AM It was a wonderful night out there. Mark and his friend showed up and we looked at several galaxies over in Virgo including M87 and M84 and Markarian's chain of galaxies. We also looked at Saturn and it was always neat to hear someone knew just really begin to comprehend how far away these objects are.
Mark and his friend left around 10:00p.m. and I went to work on my list for that night. I observed and sketched the following items (using the Scott Mellish Sketching Technique which is using white and gray pastel on black paper, applying the pastel in layers with various paint brushes. This method gives a much improved realistic look in my opinion). I found 165x to 235x worked really well this night. The seeing wasn't quite good enough for 330x except for moments of clarity. Antoniadi II this night at zenith.
NGC 3726 Mixed Spiral in Ursa Major NGC 3938 Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major NGC 3665 Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major NGC 3941 Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major NGC 3912 Mixed Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major NGC 3621 Spiral Galaxy in Hydra NGC 4361 Planetary Nebula in Corvus. Both with a narrowband filter and w/o the filter this PN was rather large, easily viable and looked almost like a galaxy in the EP. 13th mag central star was easily visible at 165x. Nice object to view but I love PN's. NGC 4027 Barred Spiral Galaxy in Corvus. Wonderful object! My favorite sketch of the night because I really captured what I saw, though I questioned it until I came home. The sketch very closely resembles what some astro-imaging captures in terms of structure and some details at 165x and 235x. One spiral arms is longer than the other and that was evident visually. NGC 4038/39 in Corvus. Irregular Barred Spiral Galaxy for NGC 4038: Wonderful pair of interacting galaxies also known as The Antenna due to the tails they form in photographs. Very evident interacting with each other. NGC 4039 looked like a kidney shaped galaxy, or better yet a shrimp like shape with NGC 4038 being irregular (both are irregular). At the eastern end I can see where the galaxies connect Hint of a tail (?) at the western end, though I am not positive of that. Wonderful pair and with NGC 4027 would be two excellent and close targets to image for someone wanting that. NGC 3962 Elliptical Galaxy in Crater. NGC 4594 Spiral Galaxy edge on in Virgo. Also known as Messier 104 or the Sombrero Galaxy. As always, wonderful object and the dust land really snapped out in the 10mm and 7mm Pentax XW. NGC 4856 Barred Spiral Galaxy in Virgo.
This ended my Herschel 400 hunt for the night
Saturn: Wonderful as always. I would love to see Saturn in the Refractor at SPOC using the 10mm Pentax XW. I'll hopefully do that soon. M13 in Hercules. Hercules was well up by the time 2:20a.m. came around so I went and took in a tremendous look at 165x and 330x. I saw more stars and chains of stars than I remember this night. Wonderful detail and again the detail just snapped out. M65, M66 and NGC 3628 in Leo. I showed these to Mark and his friend and now came back to them. I was trying out the Panoptic 27mm I had received and all I can say is WOW! I've seen all 3 in the same FOV but the 27mm Pan. just had them all there with a gorgeous view. Glad I went with the 27mm over the 24mm because of the improved eye relief and slightly larger field of view (not much). I used it as my finder all night and then just popped in the 1 1/4 adapter with the Pentax XW I was using and it worked like a charm. Antares: Double Star in Scorpius. Messier 4 in Scorpius; Globular Cluster Fun as always, wonderful detail and reminds me how close we are getting to summer Messier 80 or NGC 6093 Globular Cluster in Scorpius Messier 107 Globular Cluster in Ophiuchus
Now it was late, and it was just starting to show some signs of frost so I packed up and got home around 3:30a.m. Just a tremendous night and a good one to be out. Now if I can get a few more like that before the moon gets in the way.
Jay
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 10:04 PM, Craig Smith <cs2560@gmail.com> wrote:
How was it?
-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Jay Eads Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 5:42 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Pit n Pole
Well, humidity will be pretty ok tonight at around 50% to 55% and skies are clear and I am in need of some personal observing time so I am heading out to Pit n Pole tonight. If your interested in joining me for the evening, feel free to do so. I am leaving now, 5:41p.m. so I can get everything set up before the sun is down and to enjoy the calm and quiet.
-- Jay Eads _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php
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-- Jay Eads _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php