There are two real positives that this star party has. First, and foremost, the weather is almost always very good. I was able to observe four of the five nights I was there and with near perfect seeing and transparency. Second, the skies are really dark. There is a small light dome from Sonora in the south and Eldorado in the North-East, but neither is more than 20 degrees above the horizon. So dark skies and great weather make a perfect combination for a star party.The party was well attended this year. I arrived on Monday and found a spot on the West side of the field. I set up beside some folks from the Central Texas Astronomical Society. These folks proved to be real friendly and I enjoyed their company throughout the week.
By Friday, I estimated that there were 175 people on the field. While the field seemed "full" it was not overly crowded.Monday through Wednesday proved to be pretty good skies allowing me to log in excess of 20 objects a night, peaking at 26 objects on Wednesday night. Clouds finally rolled in after midnight on Thursday morning and with the clouds came a cold front. Temperatures went from the 70's to the 40's and cold weather gear was the order for the day. Thursday was spent at the Ranch House avoiding the cold and catching up on my observation logs. Thursday night looked to be a washout and so I joined the others at the Ranch house to watch the Rangers give away the World Series to the Cardinals in Game Six. Friday night proved to be the best of the lot, The cold front had moved out any moisture in the air and the skies were clear and crisp. I logged another twenty plus objects on my Herschel 400 list. This was my last night at the party. By 10AM Saturday morning I was packed up and heading East down I-10 towards home.
So, why the title "Pushing the Limits?" Well, this year's observation list was entitled, "Peeling the Onion." The idea was that there was a list of lesser well known objects within close proximity to a very well known object. For example, M31, the Andromeda Galaxy was on the list as well as its companion galaxies M32 and M110. Easy right? Anyone that has a half-way reasonable telescope has seen these. Well how about NGC 206 or some of M31's globular clusters? Not so easy now. Some of these objects are listed at magnitude 14. Until now, I had never even attempted something that faint. This was going to "push the limits" of my scope.
Last year at ESP'10, my Zhumell 10" was brand spanking new and I was content with seeing how it performed on some easy-to-find galaxies. While the dark skies of this year's Texas Star Party would have provided an excellent opportunity to "go deep" and see what the scope could really do, the weather did not cooperate. So, this week I had the weather and the dark skies in my favor. If the 10" water heater was going to prove its worth, it was going to be this week. It did not disappoint me. Armed with a good star map, courtesy of Sky Tools, I went in search of M31's globulars. Boy these guys are faint, but I did see them with averted vision. Equally as tough was some of the star clouds in the Pinwheel galaxy. I got so carried away with looking for these guys that I ended up observing two or three additional ones that were not even on the list!So, I muddled my way through the list and achieve my pin before the clouds rolled in on the Wednesday night. Objective 1 out of the way, but there was still the H400 list that I was working on and a series of Galaxy Clusters that I wanted to observe as this is one of the few sites dark enough that I would have a chance at.
One of the clusters that I have been wanting to observe is a chain of five galaxies in Pegasus that are known as Stephen's Quintet. I notice as I was observing NGC 7331 off of my H400 list, according to my star chart, Stephen's Quintet was about a degree to the North-East of this galaxy. So, I gave it a try. The first thing you notice when you spot these guys are their stellar-like cores. As you stare into the eyepiece and concentrate more, slowly the ghost-like halos start to emerge. They are still very faint, but noticeable. The two galaxies in the center NGC 7318A and 7318B are so close together that they appear as one single object. The fainest of the five is NGC 7317 which comes in at 14.6 magnitude!
By far, Stephen's Quintet was the best site of the week. The 10" Zhumell, "Zoe" has once again impressed me. Aperture rules!
Clear skies
rw
No comments:
Post a Comment