Observing report from Rush Valley (Saturday 5 March)
There were about a half-dozen of us that braved the cold Saturday night in Rush Valley ("Pit-n-pole") for fairly good skies (good enough, since any late Winter / early Spring opportunities are rare it seems) and good company. It was a productive night for me -- I managed to observe 21 more objects on my Herschel-400 list, getting all of the open clusters in Canis Major and Monoceros, including the cone and rosette nebulas, 4 galaxies in Leo, and one in Cancer. The "problem" with finding open clusters in Monoceros is like trying to find needles in a haystack -- most of it is rich milky-way starfields that make it difficult to tell where a cluster begins and where it ends. Thank goodness for setting circles! A couple of noteworthy clusters to look for are NGC 2506 in Monoceros, 2204 in Canis Major (looks like the constellation Perseus in miniature), and NGC 2360 in Canis Major, a real beauty in a very rich starfield that fills the eyepiece, visible even in my 9x60 finderscope. One highlight of the evening was having Tyler Allred along with his Tak-90 and CCD camera imaging the cone nebula (NGC 2264); the result was impressive (I'm encouraging him to join the list and post that and some of his other very nice images in the gallery). Dew/Frost pretty much shut us all down about 11:30. I suspect we will try again this coming Saturday, if the weather cooperates. Rich __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Thanks for the report. I noticed the forecast for Saturday was better than it has been all winter long. I didn't go anywhere, just set my scope in the backyard. I enjoyed views of Saturn (saw Mimas and Tethys with direct vision), The orion Nebula and the open clusters in Auriga. I was also to take the first look at Jupiter this season. Since I have very early meetings on Sunday, I didn't stay up too late, but enough to be making plans for the upcoming weeks. --- Richard Tenney <retenney@yahoo.com> wrote:
There were about a half-dozen of us that braved the cold Saturday night in Rush Valley ("Pit-n-pole") for fairly good skies (good enough, since any late Winter / early Spring opportunities are rare it seems) and good company.
It was a productive night for me -- I managed to observe 21 more objects on my Herschel-400 list, getting all of the open clusters in Canis Major and Monoceros, including the cone and rosette nebulas, 4 galaxies in Leo, and one in Cancer.
The "problem" with finding open clusters in Monoceros is like trying to find needles in a haystack -- most of it is rich milky-way starfields that make it difficult to tell where a cluster begins and where it ends. Thank goodness for setting circles! A couple of noteworthy clusters to look for are NGC 2506 in Monoceros, 2204 in Canis Major (looks like the constellation Perseus in miniature), and NGC 2360 in Canis Major, a real beauty in a very rich starfield that fills the eyepiece, visible even in my 9x60 finderscope.
One highlight of the evening was having Tyler Allred along with his Tak-90 and CCD camera imaging the cone nebula (NGC 2264); the result was impressive (I'm encouraging him to join the list and post that and some of his other very nice images in the gallery).
Dew/Frost pretty much shut us all down about 11:30. I suspect we will try again this coming Saturday, if the weather cooperates.
Rich
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participants (2)
-
David Trevino -
Richard Tenney