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Carter County Here We Come
by Jeff Ball
April 22-23, 2001
The Site:Don Kemper and I set out for the Carter County observing site. The site is on a farm near Carter Caves State Park. The sky presented with a very dark zenith, north, west, south, and northeast. Grayson light dome is in the east-southeast and Olive Hill light dome is in the southwest. The Grayson light dome is fairly intense and rises about 15 degrees into a moisture-ridden sky. The sky darkness is very nice. The site is very useful for dark sky observing and astrophotography. The Carter Caves State Park lodge serves as a great meeting place as well as an emergency bathroom if needed. The site also can receive cellular phone service for AT&T (our dark sky site requirements are quite numerous, aren’t they?). The lodge is less than 5 minutes away. The field is very nice with flat spots and moderately deep grass. It is a very pretty spot even if the skies are not clear.
The Viewing:High clouds would roll across the sky in 5-minute intervals. The sky openings were about 15 –20 degrees wide. Enough to do some viewing. First sight was Jupiter. I really have to view this more often with my 5". I really enjoyed the view. No shadow transit or red spot transit was noted. The 4 Gallilean moons were lined up as they should be. Plenty of detail in the 5mm Radian on the cloud bands. Very nice view, considering the low altitude of the object. Saturn was in some low clouds to the west and is largely gone from evening viewing for 2001. So long friend. Deep Sky: This is galaxy season. So I set the 5" on what was to be my photographic targets for the night, M65/66/NGC3628. M65 and 66 were quite obvious in the 22 Type IV Nagler. The NGC galaxy is an edge on and was hit or miss depending on the cloud cover. M51 was calling to the north, so I placed the 5" on the interacting galaxy pair and the contrast of the AP brought them out of the haze nicely. I could see some of the outer arms of the larger galaxy with the Pentax 10mm giving 100x. M63 – the Sunflower galaxy is nearby and I have never spotted this galaxy. It presented with a slight elongation and with averted vision you could see the extended galactic arms. Quite bright compared to M51. M3, a globular cluster in Canes Venatici, was very difficult to resolve into individual stars with either the 10mm or 22mm. Great view, but I needed a little more transparency and maybe some more aperture to really make this objects sing. Don and I worked on finding the Eskimo Nebula in Gemini to no avail. I don’t think the sky haze helped us any here. All I can remember is how bright the object was in Rodger’s 20". I really need to stay away from 20" of aperture. Don offered some great views of M95 and 96 in Leo. He found several objects with the Cave and the Telrad. The Telrad with the Messier observing handbook proved to be a very useful resource. The sky was just not going to clear so we packed in and headed home around 1:30 a.m. View of the night: M63. This is the first time I have found this object and I could only see the photographic images of this galaxy in my eyepiece? . At mag. 9.6, this is a great galaxy for my 5".
Conclusion:Any night out observing is a good night, right? The Carter County site is yet another good observing/photographic site. This site will be very useful for low southern objects this summer. There are two streetlights about ¾ of a mile away that are in sight. They pose no real problem other than possibly casting a reflection picked up in an eyepiece. One light is totally avoidable by shielding yourself with nearby trees. Don may look into putting the old laser light on the other light on a nearby ridge. This site is very convenient and I felt very secure there. I think this site slightly edges out Greasy Ridge, mostly on the extra-features. Keep looking for that perfect dark sky site though!
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