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Rabbit season – Galaxy season by Jeff Ball April 13-14, 2001 Donald C. Martin Observatory, Huntington, WV 9:00 p.m. – 4:30 a.m. TV 85 on Losmandy GM8 mount Other astronomers: Rodger Blake and family (20” Obsession), Larry Oyster ( 8” SCT), Tim Lester (10” dobsonian), Don Kemper (binoculars), Dr. DelCheccolo and Chris (Meade CCD camera). The night of April 13, 2001 was a very nice night. Temps in the 50’s, very transparent skies, very decent seeing conditions at the Zenith as evidenced by the clear splitting of Epsilon Bootes and Epsilon Lyra with my TV85. The limiting magnitude at the zenith at the DC Martin observatory is probably around 4.3 based on my cruises through Coma Berenices.
Jupiter and Saturn are fading fast into the west. Sad to see these great giants pass behind the Sun. Jupiter is tough to get any detail out of at this late date. It is still quite a treat to see. Several bands were noted, but little detail. I pushed the TV 85 to 240x, but it was obvious that Jupiter was not going to reveal any detail tonight. Saturn Cassini division was quite obvious. Not many more chances to see Saturn before she goes behind the Sun. Mars arose around 1:00 a.m. Some detail visible as the morning passed by. Dark features were surrounding the white south polar cap. Hard to make out any detail in the middle of the disk. This show will only get better.
I thought I would push the TV85 and see just what it could do on some galaxies. Leo was the obvious target and so I began with M95, 96 , and 105. Believe it or not, I just could not make out M95 at 10.7 mag. I am pretty sure I had 105 and 96. These guys were just above the sky fog. I used the 22mm Nagler to find them and then put the 10mm Pentax for higher power. Same with the Leo trio- M65, 66, and NCG 3628. I could definitely see the Messiers, but could not pull in 3628. I then moved to Coma Berenices. Pulled in M85 at mag. 10.0 with the 22mm and then the 10mm. I thought that was pretty easy, so M100 should be a snap – right? Well, at mag. 10.2 it was not to be found. It looks like my limiting magnitude for the TV85 that night was 10.0 magnitude. This is a night for M51. Move the TV85 over to the location and boom, there it is – quite nice at mag. 9.2. Quite a sight - even at this location. That is all of the observing of deep sky objects. The Moon is rising and I am shooting the Moon tonight.
I have waited to take my first view of Epsilon Bootes. Roland Christen’s image of this double wetted my appetite. The image can be found at this link. I had the 22mm in when I first slewed to the star and saw no hint of splitting. The double is listed as 2.8 arc seconds – so it was going to take some power for this. I put the 5mm Radian and the AP Barlow to get to 240 and there they were. The beautiful yellow- gold and blue-green stars. Pretty close to the image Roland has posted. Lyra is rising, so might as well check out Epsilon Lyra. I just love this one. The double – double split quite easily tonight. The seeing conditions were very steady at this time – around 2:00 a.m. Here is a Roland Christen image of Epsilon Lyra. at this link
The drive on the C14 is in trouble. The slewing controls work fine, but the tracking rate is moving at about 2x sidereal. Larry will try one more time to get Mr. Byers to correct the problem. We may be seeking out creative answers to this problem. As for now, the C14 is very handicapped in its functionality. The GM8 was a pleasure to use this night. This was my first night out. I found the ease of use of the polar alignment scope to be a joy. Objects stayed centered for 45 minutes. I can’t wait to get my polar scope for my AP 600 mount! We discovered some opportunities to improve contrast in the Newtonians. We may have a Newtonians workshop at our May OVAS meeting.
Without a doubt, the best views were provided by Rodger’s 20” on planetary nebulae. The Eskimo nebula in Gemini was awesome. An inner and outer shell structure was easily seen with averted vision. A definite highlight of the night. I am hoping to get out on Friday April 20. Please come out and take in the universe.
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