1999 December 3: Nova in Aquila
I went outside this evening (December 3; 6:00pm PST) and was able to see the nova with unaided eyes. Its brightness is essentially as Chuck Dethloff described it earlier, fainter than Delta Aql and very slightly brighter than Mu Aql.
I also watched the shadow of Europa on Jupiter, and Europa itself after it exited the disk.
Leonids Report
1999 Nov. 17/18
After a bit of indecision, I headed to the gravel pull-out south of Maupin on US 197. I got there just after 10pm with not much to do. There was a bright Moon hanging there, not due to set for another few hours, and obviously no exceptional display of Leonid earthgrazers. I had already checked the web and heard on the radio about the outburst that occurred in Europe, on schedule and roughly of the predicted intensity. Obviously, rates fell quickly. If the Leonids had any surprises in store, they weren't showing it. So, I rested up, looking out the window for any sign of activity. Only one meteor, at 10:39, looked remotely like an early Leonid. There were quite a few sporadics (which may have included Taurids and Alpha Monocerotids). I prepared to start actual observing at midnight.
The first hour's total (8:00-9:00 UT or 12am-1am PST):
12 Leonids, 6 Sporadics, 4 Taurids.
This would have been a lonely hour, except for the first of two major EVENTS of the night. A few Leonids appeared in an early cluster, but there were lots of thumb-twiddling moments including a 14 minute void. The sporadics were also on vacation. At 9:46 UT, I spotted a very curious Leonid, faint and nebulous, the kind of "meteor" that usually turns out to be a Barn Owl. Except that it was COOKING. It brightened several magnitudes, then turned orange, then exploded as a -8 fireball in shades of blue and violet. The train lasted a few minutes on that one. Its total visible flight covered about 90 degrees.
The second hour's total (9:00-10:00 UT):
26 LEO, 14 Spo, 3 Tau.
The Moon set, the radiant got higher, and it was no surprise that there were more meteors. No fireballs this hour, only one negative-magnitude job, but lots of nice meteors. Three Leonids of magnitudes 0-2 appeared simultaneously at 9:29 UT. Sporadic rates were helped a lot by the better limiting magnitude, now 6.8.
The third hour's total (10:00-11:00 UT):
44 LEO, 20 Spo, 1 Tau.
This was the hour that the Leonids finally rose above my expectations. It is also the hour of the second EVENT. Lots of nice Leonids, many with trains for a few seconds. Also, more appearing near the radiant. Okay, anyway, this is what you want to hear about. I'm sorry to say that I can't give any more of an accurate description than any of the others. But this is what I saw at 10:43 UT. Fast, glorious meteors on golden spikes of light, 6 of them in a period of about 1.5 seconds, all headed the same direction and separated by only a few degrees, when one of them EXPLODES. Yes, everything turned white. No, I'm not sure exactly how bright that fireball was, but I said "at least -10" into my tape recorder, so I'm sticking with it. It was probably brighter, though. I'm even less sure of the magnitudes of the other meteors that were with it, as everything I saw except the flash was wiped from my mind afterwards. Maybe there were only 5 instead of 6. All I could think of was: "I've seen something like this before." Where?
http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~nms/kinosi_e.html
You might want to read up on the observational circumstances of that one. Too bad nobody had an image-intensified video camera on our event, although the bright one might have done some damage.
Back to the fun and games. Except that the train from the bright one is still there. It was quickly contorted, but remained fairly compact. Every time I checked, it was still visible, until over 50 minutes later! I finally pronounced it dead at 11:35 UT.
Hour 4 totals (11:09-12:09 UT, after a "maintenance break" during which I saw 10 Leonids in 9 minutes while not continuously watching the sky):
51 LEO, 14 Spo
Another strong hour, although with mostly fainter Leonids. 65 meteors/hour for two
consecutive hours ain't a bad show, folks. So, let's go for one more.
Hour 5 totals (12:09-13:10 UT):
73 LEO, 28 Spo
By this time in the morning, the radiant is about 60 degrees high and meteors are everywhere. It's nice to watch the horizon and see the meteors falling straight down from the radiant. It's nice to watch Orion. It's nice to watch near the radiant. It's nice to see the sporadics coming in from all different directions. It's the chosen hour of the night. Two fireballs this hour, one Leonid and one sporadic.
A couple of hours of sleep, then back to town for more sleep. I'm happy to say that I didn't get my you-know-what out of bed until 0 UT, November 19.
1999 November 15: Transit of Mercury
Yes, contrary to dire predictions of the futility of projection methods (and also contrary to earlier weather forecasts), the transit was beautifully visible from my backyard with the SOD (Scope of Death, my pet 60mm refractor). I picked up my scope and went outside at 1:09pm PST, located a suitable spot, got the Sun in view with my "sacrifice" eyepiece, a 12.5mm Huygens, and shot the image to a sheet of paper in the bottom of a garbage can. Beautiful sunspots, lots of shimmering on the edge, found NE on the disk, and saw nothing there. A brief moment of panic, then at 1:13 I noticed an indentation in the shimmering that seemed more or less constant. Soon it was unmistakable. Mercury was crawling onto the solar disk. The seeing wasn't good enough for me to see a clear "black drop" effect at second contact, but by 1:19 the planet's disk seemed round and by 1:27 there was a thin edge of the Sun always visible between the planet and the limb. Clouds moved in for about 15 minutes, but I was able to see the transit's progress during mini-breaks. The sunspots were something else: one huge black group with conjoined penumbrae looking like giant footprints in the center of the disk. A small group on the NW limb with faculae more noticeable than the spots. Isolated sunspots and small groups populating the rest of the disk. And then this little black, round thing, barely inside the NE limb. Well-focused, it was perfectly round. Out of focus, it would pass for a sunspot itself, but it was MOVING. Slowly but surely slipping over and off the face of the Sun. Third contact at 2:03, then into the shimmering and gone for sure by 2:09.
1999 Orionid Meteor Shower Summary
I got in observations on 3 successive nights (mornings, actually, in order to avoid the Moon and observe when the radiant was high). I picked the morning of Oct. 20 to head for Mt. Hood and darker skies. It looks like I chose the right night, as there were many meteors and the weather was mild.
October 18/19: I observed for two hours from my backyard (Limiting Magnitude=6.1) and saw only 11 Orionids (ORI) and 1 Epsilon Geminid (EGE). Most astonishing were the sporadic (SPO) rates, completely in the toilet with only 4 observed! Taurids were also absent.
October 19/20: I observed for three hours from White River Canyon (LM=6.5) and counted 52 ORI, 49 SPO, 10 EGE and 4 Taurids. A decent night, about what I expected based on last year's observations. Two ORI fireballs, a -4 with a violet tinge and a -3.
October 20/21: Back to the backyard for two hours, and another slow go. Only 10 ORI, 10 SPO, and 4 Taurids. No EGE that morning.
Approximate Zenithal Hourly Rate for the Orionids
Oct. 19.5 = 10
Oct. 20.5 = 21
Oct. 21.5 = 9
1999 October 15/16: Larch Mountain, Comets
I went up to Larch on Friday night, and got there just as most people seemed to be leaving (after 11pm). It was cold but pleasant until the wind started blowing. A swirling, blustery wind. But I couldn't let that keep me from my observations of the fuzzy spots that move across the sky. I knew that this might be my last chance to see Comet C/1999 J3 (LINEAR), an allegedly 8th magnitude object heading south on a beeline and visible before twilight. The hardest part was the waiting. I jabbed around the midnight sky for an hour and a half, main highlight being the pale ghost that Comet Lee has become. Then I improvised a spectacular front-seat sleeping bag apparatus and settled in for a few hours of shut-eye, unnoticed by the occasional car that drove up to the paved lot and turned back down the mountain...
My alarm was set for 4am, but I have a history of oversleeping. I was very pleased, then, that I woke with a start to find the winter sky overhead at 3:58. I pointed my binoculars at the comet's position, and there it was. Round, semi-condensed, no tail. I've probably seen 30 comets that looked just like it, but for some reason I had to see this one, knowing that I will never see it again... How simple. I set the SOD up outside my open window and viewed from inside the car. The comet moved noticeably over a half hour against its field of stars. A few looks at the Messiers of winter, and I was off again. I remember my comet-seeking adventures before I had 8x56 binoculars, a real star atlas, a car, or <gasp> the Internet. Much less uncertainty nowadays, but still the battle against sky conditions, weather conditions and sleepiness.
At least I stayed on the mountaintop for a while before driving back down.
1999 October 4: Fireball Observation
I was watching TV when something made me look out the window just in time to catch a bright blue fireball low in the southern sky. Did anyone else see this? It might help to pin down time, magnitude, and path info.
I reported the following to the fireball data center via the online report form at: http://www.imo.net/fireball/report.html
Date: 1999 Oct 4
Time: 4:41:55 UT (21:41:55 PDT Oct 3)
Site Coordinates: 122deg 31' 46" W 45deg 28' 37" N
ALTAZ COORDINATES:
Beginning Altitude: 25deg
Beginning Azimuth: 190deg
Ending Altitude: 10deg
Ending Azimuth: 210deg
CELESTIAL COORDINATES (converted from altaz)
Beginning RA: 20h 45m
Beginning Dec: -19deg
Ending RA: 19h 10m
Ending Dec: -28deg
Apparent magnitude: -6
Color: Blue
Fragmentation: None
Persistent Train: 1 second
Velocity: Slow (2/5)
NOTES:
Fireball observed through window. No stars visible in vicinity at time of observation. Time uncertain +/- 10 seconds. Path had at least three breaks in it (impression that meteor dimmed significantly at these points).
1999 September 17/18: Goat Mountain
Nice night; Milky Way visible even when Moon was up; LM improved to ~7.0 in early morning (overhead; horizons were a lot brighter so it didn't compare to last Friday at OSP). Lots of folks squirreling around in their 4WDs, a couple of them going at high speed through the observing site, a bonfire up the road. No shooting after dark this time, though. Otherwise, typical Goat.
Seeing wasn't that great, I just managed to catch Io's shadow before it left the disk of Jupiter. I focused on planetaries such as M76, 7662, and 7009, pushing the Scope of Death to its 118x limit. I'm sure the thing could handle twice that, just like the box said. (That was before inflation was rampant; now, instead of 236x, you need 700x to impress people.) If anyone will let me apply a bit of electrical tape to their brand new 3mm Radian to make an adapter, we'll find out... Yeah, my trigger finger is itchy; four or five times within the last week I've come close to ordering a new scope, a different one each time...
The Milky Way was fun as always with binoculars. I forgot to download coordinates for Comet Lee, and searched around for the longest time before finding it in the binocs; it was hiding near Kemble's Cascade. Damn, there are a lot of clusters in that area. It has a broad 1/2-degree antitail, and a very stubby tail pointing the right way. There is a non-stellar nuclear condensation that I didn't note at OSP, but I think the comet as a whole is dimmer now. I also looked at it through Bob Bond's 16". Others present and accounted for were Darin, Sameer, and a father/son duo: Rob (didn't get the last name) and Steven, a fifth-grader who "found 3 of Jupiter's moons in binoculars before his dad did."
September 9/10
I arrived ~3pm, and set up camp at my old spot on the western fringe. I noted the fine examples of clouds, haze and smoke in the air. If Central Oregon is known for its clear skies, why does it seem that I always end up driving into the clouds when I go over the mountains? Luckily, it seemed to be clearing. The Sun was in a clear area, so I looked at the big prominence and the filament on the disk.
Skies cleared somewhat before dark, but clouds were thick in the east and south. Bye-bye, Sagittarius. I didn't check the limiting magnitude, but it was probably around 6.7 in the better areas near the zenith.
I mainly shuffled back and forth between the camps of Dan Gray and Scott Turner and friends. Didn't do much viewing in large scopes. Mainly swept the Milky Way in binoculars. Soon, a haze seemed to crawl over everything. I retired at 11:45pm. It was pretty cloudy when I woke up at 2am. I overslept my 3:15 alarm by about a half hour and woke up to CLEAR SKY! I threw my 60mm together and immediately went to Comet Lee. The comet was a round, diffuse fuzzball with a faint tail (antitail) of 0.5 degrees. Talk of the California Nebula made me remember how I stumbled on it by accident while doing my Binocular Deep-Sky list. Sure enough, it was visible now in my 8x56. My naked eye LM was 7.1 at 4:30. I actually tried to see the Horsehead in my 60mm. No luck :). I went over to bug Scott, one of the few living among the dead. I confirmed Comet Lee's tail in Scott's 8", and looked at M42-43. The zodiacal light was a pillar in the East. Faint meteors zipped by often. We saved Saturn, Jupiter and Venus for the last. Crisp viewing conditions, nice belts on Jupiter. The Cassini division was visible at fairly low power on Saturn. I slept in...
September 10-11
Aahhh. The daytime at OSP. At least it was shorter than usual. When I got my binoculars, I was only interested in astronomy. Then, I looked at a Wood Duck with my 8x56 and got hooked on birdwatching. This year, when I looked at the little burn by the camp area, I thought: "That ought to be a good place to find a Black-Backed Woodpecker." And I saw one almost immediately, then another, then a Williamson's Sapsucker. Then a Hermit Thrush and a Townsend's Solitaire. Then a Pileated Woodpecker. Cool! And, there were always the solar scopes.
Friday night was destined to be clear, but I was fighting with tiredness. I did a bit of observing early on in Sagittarius, including NGC 6603, labeled on a lot of star charts as M24 but clearly Messier had the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud in mind. The little cluster was almost easy in my 60mm tonight, though. Limiting magnitude continued at 7.1. Another target was NGC 185, a dim satellite of M31 which was surprisingly obvious. Nearby NGC 147 was invisible in my 60mm, though. I did some more Milky Way sweeping, and saw Comet Lee in a big telescope where the tail was bright and obvious. The big event was the shadow transit of Io, which I viewed through Scott's 8". The Great Red Spot was coming around, too. More binocular sweeping. Anyone know which cluster I call the "Bug-eyed Alien" (not NGC 457)? Have you cruised down Kemble's Cascade? Binoculars, with their wide field, are an important piece of equipment for anyone who wants to view the sky.
The sky still seemed a bit below awesome, especially in the south where some burning was going on. I got tired early Saturday morning, and conked out at 1:30 to awake after the end of morning twilight.
September 11-12
For me, this was the "big night" of the star party. I made up an observing plan, something I almost never do. Without the smoke to the south, Sculptor and Fornax would be good. Everything would be good. And it was... I'm skimming over the daytime part, where I took a long walk and saw a bunch of woodpeckers, and sat in the sun and didn't win a door prize for the sixth consecutive year.
No, the night time was the right time. I crashed Sagittarius one more time. We'll conveniently gloss over the part where I tried to use Scott's 80mm refractor and got pretty livid at the mount. Not that my 60mm is any more stable, but at least it goes where I want it to. GEMs are on my S--- list once again. Tonight, I found objects (chiefly, Barnard's Galaxy and NGC 246) in my 60mm that I had missed in a C8 at my first OSP. Barnard's Galaxy was also visible in binoculars. It was so freaking dark and clear. What was my LM? Off my chart, which only goes to 7.5. 55 stars in the SE diagonal half of the Great Square, which probably translates to 7.6 or 7.7! I HAVE seen it this dark at OSP before, but never when it was clear all the way to the horizon. My list fell, with objects rounded up in the 60mm (little globular pair 6522/6528, Saturn Nebula 7009, NGC 247, NGC 253, NGC 288, NGC 6939/6946, NGC 404, NGC 772, NGC 1097, NGC 300, NGC 55...).
NGC 55? That deserves a closer look. While I've been looking at it from OSP for several years now, I've never seen it this well. This is a huge edge-on galaxy that at -39 degrees just barely rises above the Porta-Potties from our latitude, but it was in fine form tonight, worthy of comparisons to M82 and NGC 4631, which it blows away when seen from southerly locations. Very nice asymmetry in the scope, and nice in Scott's 8". Speaking of which, when Scott was over getting mesmerized by the 12.5" binoculars (I resisted), I was pulling in objects with his Dob. If you want a rich field, look at NGC 6712, a globular in Scutum near M11. The Milky Way in this area is incredible. IC 1295, a faint planetary nebula, manages to shine through here. The gegenschein shone far from the Milky Way, near the Circlet of Pisces. I looked through a 16" at the awesome spiral pattern of M33.
Meanwhile, Ganymede was being eclipsed. I've watched lots of shadow transits, but I've never concentrated on an eclipse before. I'll do it more frequently now. Slowly but quickly (funny how that goes), Ganymede went from being bright to faint and red to a point to...gone! It was visible in the 8" for several minutes after it disappeared from my 60mm. The reappearance, still far away from the planet's limb, was just as spectacular. A good demonstration of how an eclipse differs from an occultation. I should have been watching these when Jupiter was at quadrature!
On and on and on. I observed objects that weren't on my list, didn't observe ones that were on my list, didn't do as much sketching as I had planned... But the night must end. An auroral glow poked up below the Big Dipper. It didn't look like much, but it was pretty bright and fluctuated rapidly. Through my binouculars I could see linear features, maxima and minima of brightness. One more look at Jupiter (with Ganymede hanging right on the edge), one more at Saturn, one more at the Great Orion Nebula. Venus is rising, my strength is failing. I drift off to sleep, soon to pack up camp and make the drive to Portland.
A tailwind pushes me along as I crest the Cascades. I have enough energy to do a little bit of hiking, and to meet up with a friend who has been volunteering for the Forest Service. She is surprised that you can watch the stars through binoculars. We watch Dippers and dragonflies cavort along the stream.
I arrive home, eat dinner, and sleep for 12 hours.
THE END
1999 September 2 & 3: Planetary/Lunar Observations
September 1/2
I was dog tired and retired before Jupiter rose, although I spent a few minutes in the evening looking through the standard city sludge. However, when I arose this morning I couldn't help getting out the 60mm and taking a look at Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon. Most notable was the GRS Hollow on Jupiter, which I rarely catch in this scope. (Observation at 6:30 am; 1330 UT).
September 2/3
After my experience with Jupiter in twilight on Thursday morning, I decided to get up early this morning to watch the ~3:10 am transit of the Great Red Spot. I was not disappointed, although by the time I dragged my bleary eyes out of bed it was closer to 3:30. Probably the best view of Jupiter I've had in my 60mm, rivaled only by a view from Larch 3 years ago. The GRS was faintly visible (no real color, just grayish) within its hollow, and possibly one of the white ovals nearby. Two dark barges were visible in the North Equatorial Belt, along with a couple of festoons reaching into the Equatorial Zone. The South Polar Region was nice and dark. The North Temperate Belt was thin but prominent. Great seeing; I wound up using my "special" 6mm Huygens that looks like it was popped out of a mold and scoured with steel wool, but it was the right power for the conditions.
The Moon was in an excellent phase with peaks casting looong shadows near the terminator and the Straight Wall sticking out like a sore thumb.
Oh, yeah, Saturn was out as well.
1999 Perseid Report: Clouds, Meteors and Comets
August 9/10: White River Canyon
DE-NIED!
I'm starting to think there is something really evil about this summer. As I was driving up 35, I saw a nice Perseid enter some muck that I didn't think would be there. I got there a bit after 11pm with clouds on 3 horizons and a beautiful Milky Way overhead. The edge of a large area of thunderstorms was holding steady to the east and south, sending distant flashes which lit up higher clouds approaching rapidly from the west. These clouds were semi-transparent, but reduced the sky to Portland-quality in no time. Jupiter rose through the murk, attenuated and blooming in size like some huge, tailless comet. I saw quite a few meteors through the haze; sporadics outnumbered Perseids about 10 to 5.
August 12/13 and 13/14: Central Oregon
I went out to Gary and Carolyn's place at Juniper Sky to find...clouds. Interestingly, when I left Portland at 6pm there didn't seem to be a thick cloud from Madras to the Coast Range. If I hadn't already said I was going to Juniper I would have searched for clear skies in the immediate vicinity of the Cascades. As it was, skies looked hopeful early on but never cleared. So, we watched Perseids through the clouds.
No hope of doing a formal count, as Limiting Magnitude (only ~6.0-6.5 even in the clear spots) and percentage of sky obscured (10 - 100 in 5 minutes) varied constantly, along with the center of my viewing field. Hourly breakdowns:
9:40 - 10:40pm: 20 PER, 2 sporadics
10:40 - 11:40pm: 6 PER, 6 sporadics, 1 Alpha Capricornid
11:40pm - 12:40pm: 27 PER, 7 sporadics, 2 Alpha Cap
The low rates the second hour ironically coincided with somewhat better skies (as evidenced by the sporadic count). It cleared off very nicely just after 2am and I started a count which survived for roughly 5 minutes before it got cloudy again. I saw 3 (well, 4) of the most interesting meteors as the clouds closed in: -5 and -4 PER fireballs within a few seconds, and then simultaneous parallel Perseids of about 3rd magnitude, separated by a degree or two. Lightning had been flashing off in the distance, and rain started at 3 am after I had given up on meteors and switched to Jupiter and Saturn.
Friday, August 13, was a good day for bird watching, sleeping and visiting, and not much else. I was going to leave, but I was too lazy. There was a glimmer of hope Friday evening, but the clouds ended up being thicker. We still saw a few meteors, including a gorgeous slow sporadic. At least it didn't rain.
So, thank you Gary and Carolyn for the invite and the hospitality. I'll have to come again when the weather is better. (You do have clear skies there once in a while, don't you???)
August 14/15: Central Oregon Cascades
I left Saturday morning and drove up to the Cascades near Sisters to do some birding. It cleared off. I frantically looked for a high elevation site that didn't have any trees, and found one northeast of Black Butte. Skies were always threatening, degraded in transparency (6.8 early, 6.3 in the morning hours), and the dew soaked everything, but it was a clear night! I once again put off doing a meteor count, and never did it due to the dew, but the Perseids were still an active, dominant shower with rates of 10-15/hour in the evening.
My main observing goals were the three semi-bright comets: Lynn, Lee, and Tempel 2, and I was able to observe all three. Lynn was in Coma Berenices, an easy 7th magnitude despite the low elevation and moonlight. Tempel 2 was very difficult, about 10th magnitude and averted vision in my 60mm. Lee was 7th magnitude and easy in my binoculars (my refractor absolutely dripped with dew). Lynn and Lee showed elongation and interesting detail, but no tails. Tempel 2 was just a round fuzz with no condensation.
1999 July 28: Partial Lunar Eclipse
Nice view of an early morning sky event. I caught the eclipse from around first umbral contact to a bit past maximum, alternating with views of Jupiter and Saturn and concentrating on the Moon during our shadow's passage over Tycho. It took about 3.5 minutes to traverse this large crater.
Small potatoes as eclipses go, but worth an early rise nonetheless.
Wow!
I spent several very nice hours at a large graveled pullout area on Highway 197 S of Maupin. I saw the clouds approach the Cascades, stop, and eventually draw back. There was a bit of cirrus to the north, and some scattered clouds from the south, but for the most part it was clear. Seeing was mediocre, but the limiting magnitude was a healthy 6.9.
As I was heading through Pine Grove, I noticed the sliver of a Moon setting near Mt. Hood. I got to the site just before 10pm and heard nighthawks, crickets and an occasional coyote.
I looked at a few bright M-objects in twilight, then hit Virgo. Virgo is still plenty high in the sky. I'll have to count up the galaxies I went through, so let's just say "a bunch." Midway through, I had to pull myself away to look at the showpiece objects of the spring and summer sky. When I got tired of bright ones, I went back to dim ones. I was able to see NGC6822, Barnard's Galaxy, for the first time I can recall. It was visible in both 8x56 binoculars and the RCA C8.
Looks like it was fairly clear even west of the Cascades, except near Portland. Hope others got some viewing in.
1999 May 14-16: Central Oregon Star Parties
I hit both the Friday Sunriver star party and the Saturday Klondike event. Considering the weather for the rest of my vacation week :), I felt very lucky to hit clear skies both nights.
May 14/15
Sunriver--I arrived just before 8pm to find light snow and mostly overcast skies. One trailer was parked there, with no sign of activity. I watched the clouds gradually dissipate for the next two hours, then stepped outside to find Comet Lee in the southwest. It was easy in binoculars, and in my 60mm showed a large, bright coma with a diameter of over 10 arcminutes. No tail was noted. Seeing was well above average, and the amount of detail visible on Mars was impressive. At some point Thurman Miller showed up with his 20" Dob, so I joined in that fun. We looked at many deep-sky objects, but Mars was perhaps the greatest treat. Hellas was very bright, the North Polar Cap was small and shiny, and the dark features had a lot of texture and contrast. I heard that the temperature was 25 degrees, but I'm sure it got down to about 18. Limiting magnitude was 6.8 overhead.
May 15/16
Klondike--A hell of a lot warmer than Sunriver, but very windy. Nice views of a slightly gibbous Venus in the twilight. The sky overhead was a tad darker than at Sunriver, but the horizons were murky with clouds and five or six light bubbles popped up. Seeing was nowhere near as good as on Friday, and the wind was a problem as well. Highlights were NGC 5005, a magnitude 9.8 galaxy in Canes Venatici that I'm not sure I ever viewed before (bright and obvious in my 60mm, though) and the aforementioned heart of the Virgo Cluster with nine galaxies in the field. A good photograph of this region is on page 45 of the May 1994 Sky and Telescope, along with an essential article and maps for starhopping in the Virgo Cluster.
1999 April 22/23: Lyrid Meteor Shower
I was able to see modest activity (~7/hour) from the Lyrids this morning from Lower Larch Mountain.
In 2.42 hours of observing time between 1:50 and 4:20am, I saw 17 Lyrids and 21 Sporadics. Limiting magnitude was 6.0 before moonset, and improved to 6.4 by the time I left.
Best meteors were a -3 nearly stationary sporadic and a -2 Lyrid that was a brilliant blue.
Large animals making a racket in the bushes distracted me. I hope they were deer...
I was pretty wiped at the end of the watch, but enjoyed the views of the Summer Milky Way and a few deep-sky objects like the Veil, M8, and M11.
Date: 1999 Apr. 22/23
Observer: Wes Stone (STOWE)
Location: 122.17W + 45.54N
Watch Start: 8:50 UT
Watch End: 11:20 UT
Teff: 2.42h (No breaks, dead time=5min)
Mean LM: 6.3 (areas used, IMO 13 and 15)
Field Center RA=16.75;Dec=+36.5
Magnitude Distributions
LYR (N=17, Mean magnitude=2.6)
mag.(n) -2(1); +1(4); +2(2); +3(3); +4(5.5); +5(1.5)
SPO (N=21, Mean magnitude=2.6)
mag.(n) -3(1); 0(2); 1(0.5); 2(3.5); 3(8.5); 4(3.5); 5(2)
----------
Highlights of the night: -3 sporadic, nearly stationary, and -2 Lyrid not far from the radiant with a striking blue color.
----------
METEOR LIST
# Time Stream Mag.,Speed Notes
1 906 LYR 4.5,3
2 916 LYR 3,4
3 921 LYR 1,3
4 921 SPO 3.5,2
5 922 LYR 2,4 ~0.5s
6 924 SPO 2,3
7 933 LYR 4,3
8 933 LYR 3.5,4
9 936 SPO 3,3
10 937 SPO 2.5,3
11 939 SPO 5,2
12 958 LYR 4,3
13 1009 LYR 1,3 ~0.5s
14 1016 SPO 3,5
15 1017 LYR 5,4
16 1019 SPO 0,4 ~6s
17 1019 SPO 3,3
18 1023 LYR 1,3
19 1027 SPO 2,3
20 1027 SPO 3,4
21 1028 SPO 3,3
22 1028 LYR -2,3 blue
23 1030 LYR 1,3
24 1033 SPO 5,3
25 1036 LYR 2,3
26 1038 SPO 4,2
27 1041 LYR 4,4
28 1047 SPO 3.5,1
29 1048 SPO 4,5
30 1048 SPO 3,4
31 1054 SPO 0,3
32 1055 LYR 3.5,4
33 1102 SPO 3.5,4
34 1104 SPO -3,0 point, in Cameloparalis
35 1105 SPO 1.5,3
36 1108 LYR 3,4
37 1118 LYR 4,2 near rad;somewhat nebulous
38 1119 SPO 2.5,4
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END
I went out to the lower Larch Mountain site at the end of the pavement on Brower Road early Saturday morning. There was very dense fog for the first couple miles of the Larch Mountain road, but this site turned out to be fog-free again. There was a bit of high haze, which affected contrast a bit but didn't do much to the transparency overhead. The horizons were a bit mucky, but since this site doesn't have good horizons the visible areas of the sky were quite nice. At best, the limiting magnitude was 6.7 high in the south and 6.8 near the zenith. A slight breeze kept my optics dew-free. Seeing went from fair to fair-minus.
I brought my 8x56 binoculars and 60mm K-Mart refractor. This morning belonged to the refractor, maybe because I'm thinking about replacing it in the near future. (Anyone else would have done so years ago.) Anyway, on to the objects. I observed mostly galaxies, but barely touched Virgo. The winter sky may be on its way out, but the spring sky still has a lot of deep-sky objects worth examining with small apertures.
M44 and M67: A couple of bright, splashy clusters. M44 is one of the best objects for binoculars, and also looked stellar in the nearly 2-degree field of my refractor at 27x. M67 is a misty patch with some resolution in binoculars, and a nicely resolved semicircular group at 27x.
NGC 2903: Elongated spiral galaxy; fairly large. Somewhat teardrop-shaped at 27x, with the nucleus displaced toward the south of a bright bar-shaped inner structure. Easy in binoculars as well.
M65, M66, NGC 3628: M66 is bright, elongated, with a bright nucleus. Just south of a field star. M65 looks slightly larger; brightens gradually towards the center; no structure noted. NGC 3628 is surprisingly well-defined; large, elongated with sharp edges. Easily held with direct vision. All three galaxies visible in one field at 27x. Binoculars do not show NGC 3628 as well as the refractor on this occasion.
M64: Could maybe make out hints of the black eye, especially at 27x. Very large and extended with averted vision. At 79x, the galaxy is dimmed somewhat but still impressive.
M104: At 27x, a very high surface brightness. Bright center; needle-like inner portion with faint halo.
M51: Nice, huge target. No spiral structure seen. Galaxies appear separate. NGC 5194 is large and oval; NGC 5195 is small and round with a brighter, nearly stellar nucleus.
M101: Huge; brightens gradually toward center. No real structure seen.
M81 and M82: Very nice field at 27x; also includes NGC 3077 and NGC 2976. NGC 3077 is a great faint fuzzy for this aperture; very small with a bright nucleus. Close to a field star. NGC 2976 is harder to find; it is larger, fainter, and more diffuse and does not have a convenient star nearby. It is obvious with averted vision, though. At 79x, I note how much the visual appearances of M81 and M82 are shaped by the nearby field stars. I've seen these galaxies many times, but still like to come back. I can see the dark lane that bisects M82; M81 is large but mostly featureless.
M97 and M108: M97 is quite large; not exactly bright, but obvious. Has hints of sharp edges. M108 is a tougher nut to crack; appears as a slender ray of basically even surface faintness throughout.
M102 (NGC 5866): Nice high surface brightness, oval galaxy with a bright center. Sharper edges than most galaxies. Milky color. NGC 5907 nearby is a large edge-on that I wasn't entirely convinced I saw tonight.
C/1998 M5 (LINEAR): It took me long enough, but I saw this comet. Skies deteriorated somewhat, and I initially had trouble identifying the field because of a star that didn't appear in my atlas. When it was all over, I could hold the comet with direct vision at 79x. The comet is fainter than NGC 2976, although similar in character. Round as far as I can tell. Magnitude about 10.0, diameter 1.5', degree of condensation 4-5.
After being almost completely clouded out for the Leonids in November, my hopes turned to the December Geminids. Things didn't look good for the maximum night of December 13/14, but a surprise area of clearing allowed me to get some viewing in from my backyard in SE Portland. In 2.38 hours of viewing, I saw 99 Geminids and 25 other meteors. Limiting magnitude averaged 5.7 and I had some obstruction from buildings, so correcting for these factors and the elevation of the radiant the Zenithal Hourly Rate was near 100, just as it should have been. I would have preferred dark skies, but at least it was clear for part of the night.
Memorable meteors included a fragmenting -3 with a violet tinge
and a blue -6 magnitude fireball.
OFFICIAL COUNT KEY: UT=Universal Time, Teff=Effective Observing Time (hours), LM=Limiting Magnitude, GEM=Geminids, MON=December Monocerotids, HYD=Sigma Hydrids, SPO=Sporadics DATE: 1998 December 13-14 BEGIN 07:07 UT END 10:15 UT LOCATION: Long: 122.53 West, Lat: 45.48 North (Portland, OR) ------------------------------------------------------------------- PERIOD (UT) Teff LM GEM MON HYD SPO 0707-0835 1.38 5.75 52 2 1 10 0915-1015 1.00 5.69 47 1 1 10 TOTAL 2.38 5.73 99 3 2 20 ------------------------------------------------------------------- MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS SHOWER -6 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 GEM 1 1 4 9 12.5 24 30.5 15.5 1.5 MON 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.5 1.5 1 HYD 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 SPO 0 0 0 0 0 1 12.5 6.5 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------- SKY OBSCURED 0707-0835 UT: 20% 0915-1015 UT: 10% Total: 16% ------------------------------------------------------------------- MEAN MAGNITUDES GEM 2.11 MON 4.17 HYD 2.00 SPO 3.28
On October 21, 1998, I observed Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner from White River Canyon on Mt. Hood. The comet was just barely visible in 8x56 binoculars. In a 60mm refractor @ 27x, the comet was well-defined and mostly round with a faint extension to the NE. The nucleus was bright and non-stellar.
I was able to observe the Orionid meteor shower on two successive nights, 1998 October 19/20 and 20/21, for a total of 5.25 hours effective observing time (Teff). During this time, I recorded 188 meteors. The Orionids (ORI) showed average activity on these two nights, with a peak observed rate of 27 per hour on October 21 between 10:43 and 11:43 UT. The two Taurid showers (NTA and STA) and the minor Epsilon Geminids (EGE) were also active. Sporadic meteors were recorded as SPO. Rate summaries and mean magnitudes are given below.
DATE: 1998 October 19/20 BEGIN 10:22 UT END 12:37 UT LOCATION: Long: 122.53 West, Lat: 45.48 North (Portland, OR) ------------------------------------------------------------------- PERIOD (UT) Teff LM ORI EGE STA NTA SPO 10:22-12:37 2.25 6.0 28 4 3 2 18 ------------------------------------------------------------------- MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS SHOWER -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 TOTAL ORI 0 3.5 1.5 0.5 7 12.5 3 28 EGE 0 0 0 0.5 3 0.5 0 4 STA 0 0 0.5 1.5 0 1 0 3 NTA 1 0 0 0 0.5 0.5 0 2 SPO 0 0 2 4.5 4.5 5 2 18 Total 1.0 3.5 4.0 7.0 15.0 19.5 5 55 ------------------------------------------------------------------- SKY OBSCURED: 10% ------------------------------------------------------------------- Mean Magnitudes ORI: 3.16 EGE: 3.00 STA: 2.50 NTA: 1.25 SPO: 3.03 ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 1998 October 20/21 BEGIN 8:35 UT END 11:43 UT LOCATION: Long: 121.67 West, Lat: 45.30 North (Mt. Hood, OR) ------------------------------------------------------------------- OBSERVING PERIODS PERIOD (UT) Teff LM ORI EGE STA NTA SPO 8:35-9:38 1.00 6.6 16 2 1 0 17 9:38-10:38 1.00 6.6 19 5 3 1 22 10:43-11:43 1.00 6.5 27 2 0 0 18 ------------------------------------------------------------------- MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS SHOWER -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 TOTAL ORI 1 3 4.5 8 5 13.5 16.5 9 1.5 62 EGE 0 0 0 0.5 1 3 2 2.5 0 9 STA 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 4 NTA 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 SPO 0 1 1.5 5 13.5 17 11.5 6.5 1 57 Total 1.0 5.0 7.0 13.5 19.5 34.5 32.0 18.0 2.5 133 ------------------------------------------------------------------- SKY OBSCURED: 0% ------------------------------------------------------------------- Mean Magnitudes ORI: 2.75 EGE: 3.56 STA: 1.75 NTA: 3.00 SPO: 2.96 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Unlike many of my cohorts, I had to work Friday, so I made do with one clear night of observing (Friday; as most know, it was a bit wet on Saturday night). Unlike the last two years, I couldn't stay until Monday, so that was ALL I got.
Well, an hour or so on Sunday morning after the clouds became intermittent, allowing me to revisit a good number of binocular deep-sky objects, but that night was very nearly a total loss. At least I had a solid car roof over my head.
Friday 8/21-22
A clear night! Haze/smoke/clouds around the horizon, especially to the South. Some haze overhead, but very dark. At 10:30pm PDT, LM was 7.4 at the zenith and 6.7 at 30 degrees elevation to the NE. Seeing steadied up to a subjective 9 during the night. Everyone kept telling me it was better Thursday night, so it must have been pretty good then.
I got the privilege to view through a certain large scope. Thanks Bill and Dan for one of the quickest hours of my life!
Favorite views:
NGC 5907: 10th-magnitude edge-on spiral that is at or beyond the limits of my 60mm refractor. A very long, thin ray with low surface brightness except at the nucleus, which is bright, blue, and mottled. A dust lane can be seen on one side, reminiscent of NGC 4565.
M51: Very grand, although the contrast with the surrounding sky could have been better. Unreal, cartoonish feel; bluish color in arms. Arms traced into nuclear region. Concentrated so much on these that I didn't closely examine NGC 5195, although I did notice the bridge between galaxies seemed quite dim and incomplete.
M82: A field-filler; mottling and dust lanes visible. Still, no real improvement over views I have had in a 17-inch, probably due to its low altitude for this observation.
M81: Intense nucleus and bright outer regions, but no spiral detail noted.
M17: With an O-III filter, looks like a Hubble photo. There is nebulosity everywhere, with streaks and clumps. Wonderful 3D experience!
NGC 6960: The Veil near the zenith from the top of a tall ladder was a bit of a chore. This portion looked spectacular, though.
M31: Three dust lanes seen. An incredible object in a 12-inch wide-field, where its full extent can be appreciated. 40-inch shows stellar nucleus well, maybe a bit of angular size to the nucleus.
NGC 206: Huge star cloud, dimly mottled with 17th magnitude stars. Looks like NGC 6603 does in a smaller scope.
M32: Very bright, especially in the central region. I hear there's a black hole in there.
M110: A field-filler, looking much like M31 does in a smaller aperture.
NGC 7009: Saturn Nebula: Both ansae seen in 14-inch.
NGC 185: Another satellite of M31: Huge ghostly glow in 14-inch. NGC 147 much dimmer, not well-seen.
Jupiter: Huge, looping festoon from the NEB into the EZ and back. Good detail across the globe, especially in the NPR and SEB. SEB split into two belts.
Aurora Borealis: Faint display when I woke up at 4:00. Apparently it was more active earlier, but had several spikes while I watched. Larger than 1994 display, but still faint and pale.
I observed the Perseids from 10:00-1:00 PDT, covering both moonlight-free and moonlight-affected periods. Perseid rates were comparable during both conditions, although I saw more of the fainter sporadics during the moon-free period. The sky was a lot more beautiful when it was dark as well. Rates were as below, about 37/hour for Perseids. These were far below the peak hours in my dark-sky watches of 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1997, but not bad considering the timing and the moonlight.
Observations 1998 Aug. 12/13 Wes Stone (STOWE) White River Canyon, OR 45N 18' 121W 39' Field Centered at 20h,+40d all night LM areas used: 13 and 15 F=0 for entire night ---------------- UT # # Interval Teff(h) LM PER Non-PER* 0500-0608 1.05 6.7 39 19 0609-0800 1.84 6.3 68 20 ------------------------------------------------------ Totals 2.89 107 39 = 146 *Non-PER includes possible minor shower members as noted below. ------------------------ Magnitude Distributions 0500-0608 PER (N=39, M=2.40) mag class -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 #meteors 1 1.5 4 15.5 10.5 4.5 2 Non-PER (N=19, M=3.84) mag class 2 3 4 5 #meteors 1 6.5 6 5.5 0609-0800 PER (N=68, M=2.15) mag class -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 #meteors 1 0 1 1 2 6.5 11 12.5 15.5 12.5 4.5 0.5 Non-PER (N=20, M=2.62) mag class 0 1 2 3 4 5 #meteors 2.5 2 2 9 3 1.5 ------------------------------- NOTABLE METEORS Three meteors may have been from one of the Aquarid streams. Two meteors were almost simultaneous and followed the same path. Four meteors may have been Kappa Cygnids based on speed and general alignment. Most Perseids brighter than -1 had a reddish (Betelgeuse-like) tint. Brightest meteor was a Perseid at 0711 UT. Magnitude was -5 at its bright, strikingly blue terminal burst and a 15-second train that was dispersed and contorted by winds. Would have been visible longer except for moonlight and location in the Milky Way.
This was a most interesting star party. I had my fingers crossed that it wouldn't cloud up before dawn, and it didn't. The unofficial goal of the night was to rack up solar system objects. It's a good thing Dan Gray had his computerized scope out early (before sunset!); otherwise we wouldn't have seen Mercury. The haze was just too thick near the horizon. We walked out to the overlook at sunset, and I thought I caught it in my binoculars, but never could hold it steady enough to be sure. Anyway, it was fairly easy in Dan's scope, a nice crescent. The Moon was up there as well, so we had four initial solar system objects: Earth, Sun, Moon, Mercury.
I had never seen Pluto before, so this was a treat. It was easy in Dan's 14-inch and Bob Bond's 16-inch with the finder chart in Bob's packet. We're up to five solar system objects. Uranus and Neptune, both easy in binoculars and little bluish disks in the big scopes, make seven.
At this point, the asteroid curse hit. The finder charts just weren't enough to separate the asteroids from all the 9th-11th magnitude stars up there. Only in the case of Iris was the identification clear-cut. We sketched fields for a couple of asteroids, and looked for motion later. I didn't see any motion, but I guess Dan did in a couple of cases. I was able to confirm our identification of Hebe from the SkyView web page, but it looks like we may have been off on Melpomene. I wasn't really into the asteroids, but Iris and Hebe make nine solar system objects for me.
Comets are more my thing. When Dan centered C/1997 J2 the first time, we didn't see anything. Then he noticed that one of the stars had some haze around it. We both arrived at the conclusion that we were seeing the comet superimposed on the star. This was confirmed later when we returned to find the comet well-separated from the star, a little fuzz of magnitude 11.5-12. A similarly bright comet nearby was C/1998 M5 (LINEAR). The final comet, 52P/Abell-Harrington, was near the Pleiades, and was also visible, though a bit fainter. It's still nine or ten magnitudes brighter than it's "supposed" to be! These comets brought my solar system total to 12 for the night.
Jupiter and its Galilean moons were a gimme 5 objects, although we had to wait for Europa to emerge from behind Jupiter, a spectacular sight in the often-excellent seeing. Saturn was attended by 6 moons (Titan, Iapetus, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus), easily identified from my finder chart, so these two planetary systems doubled my total to 24 solar system objects. We caught Venus and Mars as they rose in twilight, so my grand total stops at 26. If I ever go after asteroids again, I'm going to make sure to have finder charts down to 11th magnitude.
Other attractions included the Mir passage and Iridium flare, which were widely observed, and lots of meteors (typical for this time of year). It was warm enough that dew was not a problem. Transparency was so-so, 6.6 in the darkest part of the sky (high in the east). A lot of deep-sky objects were pretty washed-out near the horizons. Seeing I'd rate as 8-9 on a scale of 1-10. Again, Jupiter showed some amazing detail.
The three best deep-sky treats I viewed were the Box Nebula in Ophiuchus, NGC 604 in M33 in Triangulum, and NGC 1514. The latter is a large, faint planetary nebula surrounding a very bright central star. It was visible in Dan's scope without an OIII, though the filter helped. We ran into it when Dan was looking for an object near comet 52P to update his scope alignment.
The Sun was impressive in the morning through Dan's filter, although I was too bleary-eyed to really look at it. Several large spot groups and a large area of faculae.
Now I need to get some sleep.
White River Canyon WAS clear on Saturday night; there were some heavy clouds around Mt. Hood in the afternoon but these were all gone well before dark.
As for the viewing, it was one of the "worst" nights I've seen at that location. The site has a reputation for poor seeing; the seeing got better as darkness fell and varied from 5-7 on a scale of 1-10. I've seen a couple of nights here with exceptional limiting magnitudes of better than 7; this one wasn't in that class, but was still pretty dark. The one star count I did gave Lm=6.8, but transparency seemed to go downhill as the night wore on. There was a little bit of dew. Okay, so it wasn't that bad after all.
A few of the objects to e-mail home about:
Planetaries: NGC 6804, 6781, 6905
Globulars: NGC 5466, 6934, 6229, 6712, 6760, oh yeah and M22, M15, M92
Galaxies: NGC 7013, NGC 6824, NGC 4631 (edge-on peculiar galaxy with companion), NGC 4656 (hockey-stick), M63, M106
Great crowd there. The transparency was excellent for this time of year, 6.6 by my star count around midnight. Seeing was pretty good at times, too. Having only my binoculars, I had to mooch off Dan and others for higher-magnification, larger-aperture views. We saw a couple of objects I don't recall observing before: the Bubble Nebula and NGC 7048 (an elliptical planetary). These were both nice, as were the obligatory objects like the Veil and M51. Planets took center stage in the morning hours. Ganymede's shadow was on Jupiter's disk until well into twilight, and Io emerged from behind the limb while we were watching. Seeing was good off and on, not really steady but the Great (insert not-quite-red color here) Spot was visible in Dan's scope once it rotated into view. Saturn also got up above the muck; Cassini's Division was pretty steady. I stayed for the rising of Venus and the Moon, but left before sunrise.
A supernova (SN1998bu) was recently discovered in the spiral galaxy
M96 in Leo. On 1998 May 26, I successfully viewed the supernova with my
60mm refractor. Given the visibility of the supernova, I estimated its
brightness at magnitude 11.
Despite variable sky conditions, I observed the Lyrid meteor shower on 1998 April 22 from 10:02-11:32 UT. In 1.5 hours effective observing time, I recorded 15 Lyrids and 12 sporadic meteors. Average Lyrid magnitude (corrected for a limiting magnitude of 6.1) was 2.8. Average sporadic magnitude, also corrected, was 3.4. Zenithal Hourly Rate for the Lyrids was estimated at around 18.