14 December 2004

Observing Location	TotL
Atmospheric Conditions	It was supposed to be a clear night but they missed it again. When I arrived the sky was mostly overcast with some areas of thinner cloud where the stars where shining through. Since I had spent the dime coming down to the park and there were a few stars I set up anyway. Conditions went downhill for a while then it cleared out about 2230 EST. By 2330 EST the temperature was down to 22F and my feet were mostly frozen although the rest of me was very comfortable (long johns, chamois shirt, flannel-lined pants, wool sweater and parka), and the clouds were starting to fill in again so I packed it in.
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binoculars
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Naked-eye Limiting Magnitude Observations	Conditions were so bat at the start of the evening that it was pointless to try limiting magnitude observations. The sky changed moment by moment and was generally cloudy. Around 2300 EST conditions were better and they might have been meaningful. I did see down to Mag 3.8x about that time in Ori.

Target	Saturn
Constellation	Gem
Category	Planets
Time	14Dec04; 2204 EST
Comments	No moons were visible in my binoculars.

Target	Star Color Comparison
Constellation
Category	Stars
Time	14Dec04; 2204 EST
Comments	Type Color Temperature Example Mnemonic Comments O Blue 28,000-43,000 Mintaka δ Ori Oh Not observed. B Blue 10,000-28,000 Rigel β Ori be Not observed. A Blue-White 7,500-10,000 Castor α Gem a I characterized it as blue-white F White 6,000-7,500 Procyon α CMi fine Not observed. G Yellow-White 5,000-6,000 Pollux β Gem girl I called it golden. K Orange 3,500-5,000 Arcturus α Boo kiss Below the horizon. M Orange-Red 2,500-3,500 Betelgeus α Ori me. I saw it as orange white.

Target	Geminids Meteor
Constellation	Gem & UMa
Category	Meteors
Time	14Dec04; 2228 EST
Comments	This was the only meteor I saw tonight. It came from Gem heading toward the snout of UMa or maybe Lyn, but probably not that high. It was bright and fast moving. The image did not persist.

Target	The Trapezium, θ Ori
Constellation	Ori
Category	Stars
Time	14Dec04; 2235 EST
Comments	It appeared as three stars in a row with a widely spaced bright star off a good distance to the right. The first star on the right was a close double that I could just split. There is a great magnitude difference making the secondary look small and a little hard to separate from the glare of the primary. To the left of this is a dimmer star. And an equal distance to the left again is an even dimmer star. [I am not sure how much of what I am seeing is actually the Trapezium. The descriptions are generally designed for telescopes which is what you really need to see the individual stars properly, but I have trouble converting them to binocular views since most don't tell you if they are up/down reversed or up/down and left/right reversed. It is as bad as jumping between Ben's refractor, Peter's reflector and my binoculars and trying to figure out where things should be in each instrument.] More information about the Trapezium. θ Orionis eclipses

Target	&signa; Ori, Struve 747
Constellation	Ori
Category	Double Stars
Time	14Dec04, 2239 EST
Comments	This is an easily split double of unequal brightness. It is off ι Ori at the bottom of the Sword.

Target	Yale 1906
Constellation	Ori
Category	Stars
Time	14Dec04; 2241
Comments	The sky feels funny around this star, a little bit of glow or nebulosity, but it is very subtle. This star is to the upper left of ι Ori, the bright star at the bottom of the Sword.

Target	NGC1981
Constellation	Ori
Category	Deep Space Objects
Time	14Dec04, 2244 EST
Comments	The sky is very clear here right now. It appears as an arc of three stars on the left and a pyramid of stars (a triangle with an apex star in the middle) on the right. There are more fainter stars around the pyramid.

Target	The Great Nebula, M42/M43
Constellation	Ori
Category	Deep Space Objects
Time	14Dec04; 2246 EST
Comments	The nebulosity really flares out below the Trapezium when viewed with averted vision while looking at NGC1982.

Target	Running Man Nebula, NGC1977
Constellation	Ori
Category	Deep Space Objects
Time	14Dec04; 2247 EST
Comments	I don't see any nebulosity here. I see two bright stars (45 Ori, Mag 5.28, on the left and 42 Ori, Mag 4.62, on the right) with a dimmer star between them. Those stars are in the left lobe of the nebulosity which is Mag 4.2.

Target	σ Ori
Constellation	Ori
Category	Double Stars
Time	14Dec04; 2251 EST
Comments	This is a quadruple star system. I can see it as a star naked-eye. In the binoculars it is an obvious double with an oddly shaped primary. There is a widely spaced pair of stars off to the right.

Target	354 Elenora
Constellation	Ori
Category
Time
Comments	A Mag 10.1 asteroid. It is below the practical limiting magnitude of my binoculars in a dark sky which this wasn't. The most I can say is that I was in the neighborhood.

Target	McNeill's Nebula, M78
Constellation	Ori
Category	Deep Space Objects
Time	14Dec04; 2304 EST
Comments	This is a large nebula with a brightness of 8.3. It is another I was in the neighborhood object although I noted some softness in the area without knowing I was looking for a nebula.

Target	Flame Nebula, NGC2024
Constellation	Ori
Category	Deep Space Objects
Time	14Dec04; 2306 EST
Comments	I looked for this emission nebula without success. It is tight up against Alnitak, ζ Ori. (Searching Carted du Ciel I found that Alnitak is actually five stars, two of which have the ζ designation and the remainder just have catalog numbers.) I suspect that Alnitak is too bright to see the nebula at the magnification I can use on it. The Horsehead Nebula, B33, is on the other side of Alnitak and I didn't see that either although I was looking in that area at σ Ori. More information on the Flame Nebula.

Target	Three Leaps of the Gazelle
Constellation	UMa
Category	Stars
Time	14Dec04; 2329 EST
Comments	The Three Leaps of the Gazelle is an asterism composed of three Pairs of stars that are the paws of the Great Bear. The individual pairs of stars are roughly evenly spaced and lie in approximately the same orientation from each other. They span 31 degrees of the sky. A couple of interesting things about this asterism: the Great Bear only has one front leg, there is no gazelle (it has been chased off and is hiding in some other constellation or eaten by the lions that rise following the first leap) > Leap Location Stars Magnitude Separation 1 Back Foot ζ UMa ν UMa 4.43 3.50 1.6° 2 Middle Foot μ UMa λ UMa 3.07 3.47 1.7° 3 Front Foot κ UMa ι UMa 3.62 3.16 1.2° There is a false leap or a decoy leap at the bottom end of Lynx (α Lyn & 38 Lyn, Mag 3.15/3.84, Sep 2.5°) but it is not in line with the other leaps so should not fool you.