17 October 2004

Observing Location	Bras d'Or Lookoff, Trans Canada Highway, Highway 105, Cape Breton, NS, Canada 46.245558 N, 60.504775
Atmospheric Conditions	I was driving back from Baddeck to Sydney along the Trans-Canada Highway, Highway 105, and noticed stars out my window so I determined to stop for some observing at the St Ann's Lookoff or the Bras d'Or Lookoff. While driving up Kelly's Mountain I ran into a few patches of for but stopped at St Ann's Lookoff anyway. The observing was variable as fog was forming as the air moved down that side of the mountain so when it got pretty thick I drove across the crest to Bras d'Or Lookoff where the fog wasn't much of a problem at all. There was some schmutz up to about 3 degrees above the NE - E horizon and no stars were visible below Sirius.
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binoculars
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	M45, The Pleiades, NGC1432
Time	17Oct04; ~0130 ADT
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	The Pleiades are just under a degree across at their widest point and yet, in all that sky, they are always the first thing I am able to identify. It must be because the six easily visible stars are all 3-4 magnitude so are fairly bright and confined to a small space. There are lots more stars there in the binoculars.

Target	Hyades, Melotte 25 and Collinder 50
Time	17Oct04; ~0130 ADT
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	It took a little work but I finally located Aldeberan and the Hayades. I am not able to see θ Tau as a naked-eye double here. [I had initially classified the Hyades as an asterism but Ben has corrected me, indicating that it is really an open cluster, so now I am lumping it with the other clusters and numbered objects under the heading Deep Space Objects. I suspected that, given how large it looks in the sky, it must be the biggest open cluster so performed a Google search to confirm this. But I found a link to the National Solar Observatory's page of Astronomical Records, which lists all kinds of biggest, smallest, most, fewest and similar statistics about our solar system. They say that the largest open cluster is Dolidze 25 at 18.1 parsecs. The Hyades is 80 ly in diameter (10 ly for the central core). That converts to 24.5 parsecs so it is obvious that my two data sources are defining the diameter of the cluster differently. If we consider only the central core of the Hyades then the number listed by the NSO is larger, but we don't know what it represents. The Hyades is the nearest open cluster to earth that looks like an open cluster (the Big Dipper is an open cluster but has the appearance of individual stars).] More information on the Hyades

Target	Kemble's Cascade
Time	17Oct04; ~0130 ADT
Category	Asterisms
Comments	Although I was not able to find Algol and α Per or β and ε Cas, which are my guide stars for finding Kemble's Cascade, I was able to put my glasses right on it by figuring the rough spatial relationship with M45 and the Hayades. The 8th magnitude stars were all very solid but again I was not picking out the double. I don't know if it is because I was hand holding the binoculars so they were always in motion, or because the sky is so clear that doubles appear differently here. Does atmosphere have a direct or more of a logarithmic effect on star visibility? Will the brightness of stars of differing magnitudes appear constant in all atmospheres? Since the magnitude numbers are given as absolutes it would seem that they will always appear the same, but how do the eye and brain interpret them?

Target	M31, Andromeda Galaxy
Time	17Oct04; ~0130 ADT
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	I was looking up over Kelly's Mountain toward the west and I saw, naked-eye, a blurry patch of sky. When I put the glasses on it it looked like a big cotton ball, a little more diffuse at the edges. I realized that I must be seeing the Andromeda galaxy. It was just a little bit away from the edge of the Milky Way.

Target	Milky Way
Time	17Oct04; ~0130 ADT
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	The milky way was visible but more visible up over Kelly's Mountain toward the NW. It wasn't as solid looking as it had been a week ago and disappeared somewhere past the Zenith. I find the Milky Way easier to see naked-eye than with the binoculars. From NYC we can see the sky get lighter gray in the area of the Milky Way, but here, through the binoculars, the star desnity is just much greater. With magnification in a clear sky the milky appearance seems to disappear so the effect is more striking naked-eye.

Target	Sirius
Time	17Oct04; ~0130 ADT
Category	Stars
Comments	Sirius was low enough on the horizon that it is all I could see of CMa. Below it there was too much cloud or haze.

Target	Meteor
Time	17Oct04; ~0130 ADT
Category	Meteor Shower
Comments	I saw a meteor streaking across the sky for maybe 15-20 degrees of arc. I didn't notice any particular color but its passage was brief and I was not looking directly at it. I suspect that it was an Epsilon-Geminid which peak on 18Oct with a ZHR of 2.