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Sunday, June 5, 2011

Texas Star Party '11 - Part 1

Last Sunday, I made what has started to become my annual pilgrimage to the West Texas Davis Mountains to attend the Texas Star Party. This is one of, if not the largest, star party in North America. The Davis Mountains offer extremely dark skies at an altitude of about 5,000 ft. A combination that draws amateur astronomers from all over the country, and some from across the globe.  I personally met people from Wisconsin, California, Washington DC, South Carolina as well as Ontario, Canada.  The fellowship, and presentations from other amateurs was truly amazing and  makes up a very large part of the whole experience.

The other part of the experience is of course the opportunity to observe under some of the darkest skies in the United States. Unfortunately this year, Mother Nature did not smile on the star gazers as well as in past years. Sunday and Monday nights were fair. Tuesday evening presented itself with a wind storm with 50+mph wind gusts. Wednesday evening had extremely poor seeing until the clouds showed up. Thursday teased us all day with perfectly blue skies only to end with clouds and smoke from a grass fire to the West.  With Friday not looking much better, I decided to pack up and start the 10 hour drive home.

Well, I do not want to dwell on the "what could have been," and instead, I would like to describe some of the true showpiece objects that I had the privilege to observe. All of the following observations were performed on my Zhumell 10 in Dob on May 30th between 10pm and 1am.

NGC 4826 - Black Eye Galaxy - Sirus Plossl 9mm, 139x Elongated with some brightening towards center. No defined core. Mottled appearance. Some dark lanes visible. Looks very much like a globular cluster.

M 81 - Bode's Galaxy - Smart Astronomy 12.5, 100x Slight brightening towards center, mottled appearance on the arms.  Core is non-stellar, halo visible.

M 82 - Cigar Galaxy - Smart Astronomy EF 16, 78x Edge on galaxy, slight brightening towards center, distinct core not visible.


M101 - Smart Astronomy 12.5, 100x Face on galaxy, core non-stellar. Individual stars visible in arms. Dark lanes between the arms. Arms appear to wrap clockwise from center.

M104 - Smart Astronomy 12.5, 100x Elongated, central bulge visible with stellar core. Averted vision reveals some mottling or dark lane down major axis of the galaxy. Sirius Plossl 9mm, 139x more mottling visible, core becomes non stellar, dark lane more visible.

M63 - Sirius Plossl 9mm, 139x Elongated in E-W direction, bright star on western edge. Central portion brighter, core is non stellar, some hint of arms.


M20 -  Smart Astronomy EF 16, 78x Star cluster with associate nebula. Nebula is to the east of the cluster.Nebula has central dark lane. Cluster is also dissected by dark line. Several faint stars shine though the nebula. Majority of the cluster stars are on the east side. Stars in cluster have similar brightness.
Cluster is detectable with the naked eye.

SN2011BY - Smart Astronomy 12.5, 100x Supper Nova is very faint. Host galaxy NGC 3972 is only visible with averted vision.  It is an edge on mag 13 object.


More next week.....

Clear skies
rw


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