14 November 2004

Observing Location	TotL
Atmospheric Conditions	It was a Magnitude 5-5.5 night for me. The humidity was low so the atmosphere was fairly transparent. It was windy though so the scope was moving around a bit and it felt colder than it really was. When I left home at 1800 the Real Feel temperature posted on AccuWeather was 10 degrees below the ambient air temperature. Winds were pretty constant early on around 6 MPH with gusts topping out at 9 MPH at one point. Gusts are always elusive with my wind gauge so they might have been even higher. As the night wore on they settled down though.
Instruments	Golden Gate 7x35 binoculars - Charlie 10" Teleport - Peter
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac

I had this post all but finished when my browser locked up. Unfortunately writing into a blog is not like using a word processor where you have an autosave feature. You have to manually save and then reopen the page so I don’t do that as often as I should. Having already written about my observations I am having trouble finding the motivation to do it all over again. It will probably result in my comments here being shorter this time around.

I am really missing the Canon binoculars. The 7x35s just don’t see as much as the 15x50s. I am getting an appreciation for aperture fever. The sky doesn’t look as dark or the stars as bright. I almost left the tripod home tonight because I don’t spend that much time looking through the binoculars now. I am doing more naked eye observing and using the binoculars to confirm my observations when I am uncertain. Without eyecups these binoculars are not as comfortable to use and I get a lot more stray light coming in from behind me.

Target	Cassiopeia, The Queen
Time	14Nov04; 2100 EST
Category	Constellations
Comments	I was seeing more stars in Cas than I normally do so spent some time identifying the fainter ones and their magnitudes. Mostly I was between the stars we call 2 Cas and 3 Cas, α and γ Cas. I saw υ 1 and 2 Cas at Mag 4.85 and 4.65 respectively. Peter had me looking at a star that was Mag 5-6.

Target	Alpha Perseus Association
Time	14Nov04; 2115 EST
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	The Alpha Perseus Association was shining brightly. I counted 20 easily seen stars.

Target	The Engagement Ring
Time	14Nov04; 2120 EST
Category	Asterisms
Comments	We may have seen the engagement ring and, then again, we may not have. All the references I have found to it say it is a circlet of Mag 7-8 stars "just south" of Polaris. But as Peter has pointed out, everything is south of Polaris. And if you interpret south as meaning along the meridian you don't get any help because everything is going to spin through the meridian at some point during the night. So without knowing what direction to head toward from Polaris it is hard to be sure you are seeing the right thing.

Target	Kemble’s Cascade
Time	14Nov04; 2130 EST
Category	Asterisms
Comments	I am not sure I ever saw the Cascade tonight. I was in the right neighborhood but the sky looked gray and washed out. The Cascade is laying on its side now and it is a new orientation for me. Also, it is difficult to slew the binoculars diagonally on a Bogen 410 geared tripod head. I probably would have done better trying to locate it the first time hand held. Knowing the field of view of my binoculars in degrees rather than feet at 1000 yards would also be a big help in star hopping.

Target	Auriga, The Charioteer
Time	14Nov04; 2200 EST
Category	Constellation
Comments	The stars of Auriga were shining brightly so I figured I would give M36, M37 and M38 a try. I didn’t see any of them or any of the other deep soace objects that were noted in that area in Planetarium. Peter pointed out the False Kids, a mirror image of The Kids up by Capella, α Aur. These stars are much fainter and closer together and inside the constellation down near θ Aur. They are: ν Aur -- Mag 3.99 τ Aur -- Mag 4.54 υ Aur -- Mag 4.76

Target	Leonid Meteor
Time	14Nov04; 2200 EST
Category	Meteors
Comments	While looking in different directions Peter and I both said in unison “Wow” as a bright meteor flew overhead near the zenith. It was moving very fast and was yellow-green in color with a large tail. I don’t think I have ever seen a meteor that gave the impression of being that close to Earth.

Target	Galaxies
Time	14Nov04
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	Peter located two galaxies that we have not seen before. I was able to see one of them in Perseus but am not sure that I saw the other which was out in the west I think.

Target	Orion, The Hunter
Time	15Nov04; 0000 EST
Category	Constellation
Comments	I got Orion’s Sword in my binoculars when it cleared the trees and it wasn’t much to look at. It reminds me of looking at the moon through cirrus clouds. I could see a fairly uniform cloud-like ring around the Trapezium but it didn’t really look like nebulosity. In Peter’s scope it was huge. It seems like every time we observe M42/M43 in the Teleport it has gotten bigger. Tonight there was nebulosity to the left of the biting surface of the molar. The nebulosity went all the way up to a horizontal line of three stars up above the Trapezium. It stopped a short distance away from the two brightest stars on the left end of the line but washed over the fainter last star and continued up to the neighborhood of two bright vertical stars some distance above. Peter was picking up what he though might have been nebulosity around a star near M42. To me it looked kind of like M42 looked in my binoculars. I see in Planetarium that the Running Man Nebula is in the neighborhood and am wondering if that might be what we were seeing. Above M42 is a line of three faint stars, Mag 6.2-6.5. The are part of NGC1981 and were easily seen in my binoculars We spent some time trying to trace out Orion’s shield naked-eye. The stars on the top end of the shield, above Orion’s hand, are mush easier to see. An historic sketch of M42/M43 by Charles Messier.

Target	Eridanus, The River
Time	15Nov04; 0045 EST
Category	Constellation
Comments	While we were in the neighborhood we also tried to trace out as much as possible of Eridanus. This was fairly difficult for me as the stars are not that bright and they are mostly low on the SE horizon where there isn’t good contrast. We did follow it around some, mainly up high between Orion and Cetus.

Target	Saturn
Time	15Nov04; 0100 EST
Category	Planets
Comments	In my binoculars Saturn looked fat and maybe slightly elliptical. In Peter’s scope we were able to see a band on the planet and the Cassini division in the rings. The planet’s shadow was visible on the rings on the left side and it looked like the planet was displaced to the left relative to the rings.