2003/10/24-26

Time: Hours of Darkness
Location: Death Valley (Mesquite Springs), California
Altitude: ~1800 ft. ASL
Weather:
- Temperature = Mid 90’s – Upper 60’s
- Humidity = 15%
- Winds = NE @ 1mph with gust around 20mph
- Clouds = 6/5
- Transparency = 6/4
- Seeing = 6/4
- Darkness = 6
Moon Phase: 0%
Telescope: Meade 16” Starfinder Dobsonian

Zero hour had arrived and it was time for me to leave. The hours preceding the trip were ones without much sleep. In the last 48 hours before leaving, I probably had only 5 hours of sleep. Anyway…that’s my problem, now, on with the report.

On the morning of the 24th I packed up, picked up John (my son) at school and hit the road. Sierra, my trusty dog came along for the trip to Death Valley, California. We were to meet up with JC and other ASN-LV members for their Star Party at Mesquite Springs. We chose to take the route leading towards Indian Springs & then to Beatty north on US95.

The drive was pleasant and we found it odd to leave one hot place and drive to somewhere else that was hotter! It usually isn’t that way when you live in Las Vegas.

Along the way we stopped in Beatty for some supplies I forgot. Unfortunately, they didn’t have what we needed and had to make due with substitutions.

From Las Vegas to Beatty is an 115 mile trek though barren, but beautiful desert. From Beatty, we headed west into California on a road that I forgot the number to. There are only two ways to go, west towards Death Valley or North towards Tonopah. The road we went on took us over Daylight Pass with an elevation of a little over 5000 ft ASL.

At the summit you can see a mountain called the “Corkscrew” Mountain. 26 miles from Beatty finds us at a fork in the road where you can go south into the heart of Death Valley or north towards Scotty’s Castle which is just beyond our destination.

From the fork in the road it is 33 miles to the cut-off to Mesquite Springs and another 2 miles to the camp itself. The trip took us about 4 hours accounting for stops here and there to make sure our gear wasn’t flying out of the back of the truck plus the time we spent “shopping” in Beatty.

Upon our arrival I heard JC’s voice calling my name. He directed me to a camp which was located right next to his. He had chosen me a good one that had a big flat area to set up my 16” Dobsonian.

The weather during the late evening was better then you could ask for. Our concerns were on the sky. It was looking rather disappointing as most of it was covered in high, thin clouds. I assured JC that by the time it got dark they would be gone. I told him if they didn’t leave on their own accord, I would drag them away with my “Sky-Hook”. As the sun went down, we spent our time setting up camp and our ‘scopes. We ate our dinner which consisted of sandwiches we bought in the Beatty store, thinking about the Pork Chops I had left at home in the freezer. Sierra didn’t care what was for diner just as long as she got some! At least she was happy.

The first object of the night came in thanks to Dave who pointed out that we would have the pleasure of seeing an iridium flare if we looked between Polaris and Cassiopeia sometime just before 7pm. Just as predicted we saw the dim “moving star” come into view, brighten intensely for about 4 seconds and slowly fade away. Nice! Finally it got dark enough to use our ‘scopes. The clouds for the most part had gone away. I guess my “Sky-Hook” threat worked. Unfortunately, the wind had not calmed down and even Mars was looking on the sickly side. The breeze was alternating between warm and cool.

I started the night out looking at some familiar objects: first with M22, the magnificent globular in Sagittarius. I wanted to get that one before it set below the high mountain ridge to the south. It didn’t look very magnificent tonight, I just wanted to look. Individual stars were resolved but they were looking weak and blurry. I got a jump on the Andromeda Galaxy along with its two companions knowing it would look better as the night progressed. The Blinking Nebula in Cygnus and the Cat’s Eye in Draco were not looking at well as I’d seen them in more light polluted skies be it from my backyard or when the moon had been up. I’m sure this was due to the disturbances in the air.

I tired a different kind of object and found the Spindle Galaxy (M102) in Draco looking rather nice. My Orion map by Wil Tirion has this object labeled in the wrong place. He has it right next to M101. While in the area I also found the “Splinter” Galaxy. The Splinter is NGC 5907 and is long and thin like its name implies. Since I was in Draco, my map showed another galaxy to find. It is roughly 3 degrees from the Cat’s Eye. The mag 10 galaxy is NGC 6503 and has a mag 8.5 star near it.

The sky was still not at its best: dark but not very transparent. The only people from ASN-LV that showed up took the time to come down to my camp and give me a visit. We talked a little and they teased me about my “Sky-Hook” not working. I reminded them that at least we didn’t have the Las Vegas light-pollution! Or did we? From 180 miles away, the darn thing was still visible on the horizon. It’s not my fault; I remembered to turn my porch light off!

While they were at my ‘scope I showed them M13 which was looking as Herculean as ever. I wondered if I could see M13’s little companion galaxy as I had previously in the White Mountains. Sure enough, these skies were dark enough to bring it out. Dave I had met before and of course JC, but not Charlie. He owns an awesome 14” Meade SCT. He says that he got it last May and this has been his first chance to get it out into dark skies. I asked him if he had seen NGC 253 in Sculptor before of which he replied “yes, but not in a while”; making his way back to his ‘scope through the darkness he punched it up on his computer. Through the darkness we exchanged comments about the wonderful galaxy. Charlie said he knew the object as Caldwell 65 from the days when he used to find objects using sidereal time. We also took turns comparing Stephan’s Quintet and both concluded that only 2 or maybe 3 of the 5 were visible. The larger nearby galaxy, NGC 7320 on the other hand was looking brilliant as always. Another object we traded views of was M27 the Dumbbell Nebula. There is nothing “dumb” about this object; they should call it the “if your not blind how can you miss it” nebula! Lastly we looked at Mars. It was too bright for me and even my aperture mask could not cut the glare down. It looks better back home through my natural “sky-glow” filter! Having done that, they left me to my searching and returned to their own ‘scopes; all this time John didn’t even blink and was intent on his own search.

My intentions for the trip were to find some of the overlooked objects I had missed on prior outings. I started in Triangulum with NGC 925. My notes of the galaxy tell me that it appeared as a face-on but irregular in shape.

Near Beta Andromeda I found a galaxy very close to this bright star. It is NGC 404 and is very tiny but bright. I imagine some of the brightness from the star is making an error of its true luminosity. Get it? 404 = error? Oh well…it’s computer junk.

Aries contains a few galaxies I missed before. NGC 772 being the first I found tonight. I thought it to be fairly large, round and with a bright core. NGC 697 or 674 as I later found out is next to a group of dim stars. I found a group of 4 fainter galaxies nearby but for the life of me cannot discern which ones they are. I think the 4 other galaxies I could see were: NGC 678, 680 & 691 & IC 167. My mind was boggled so I moved to something I knew what it was: M33 the Pinwheel galaxy. It was large but not as bright as I’d seen it before.

Pisces has two galaxies I’d missed before. NGC 520 looked more “comet” like then galaxy like and is bizarre in its shape. The galaxy NGC 488 is near a bright star and close by is a small chain of 4 stars. The galaxy itself is medium-small in size, round with a bright core.

Auriga was riding high and I gave all the Messier objects in it a cruising though before running to my hero Perseus. Open Clusters are not really my thing but I found a neat one known by NGC 1513; it’s like a circle of stars with a tail coming out and almost curving back in on itself. A nearby nebula is called NGC 1491 which I thought was about ½ the size of M27 and almost round in shape. The wind started to kick up a bit and my ‘scope became a “sail” not wanting to stay on target. I decided it best to give it a rest. The others took the same queue and actually decided to take naps and wake when the sky was in a better condition. Not five minutes later a bear started his winter hibernation in JC’s tent! Good Lord that man snore.

Not long afterwards the wind quit and took with it the awful high clouds that had been hanging around. The sky became crystal clear and my ‘scope pointed to the Queen. These “Stock” objects are a bane to me; they never match up with Starry Night Pro’s data-base. Regardless, I found Stk2 which I thought looked better in the finderscope. The lowest magnification I can go with my 20mm Expanse eyepiece is 90x. I have a Sirius Plössl that is 40mm and puts out 45x but it’s like looking through a soda straw. The open-cluster NGC 1027 has a bright star in the middle and right next to it is a group of stars that I thought looked like at Atoll in the sky. NGC 225, which I cannot find from my urban location in Las Vegas, came into view in the darkened skies of the desert. The cluster reminded me of a mini double cluster. I finished off another urban-invisible cluster known as NGC 436. It is very tiny but very nice. Come to think of it, the whole area around Cassiopeia is nothing but a giant open cluster. Fitting that a Queen should be surrounded by plenty of jewels!

Returning to which some call the “King of Ethiopia” I returned to Perseus. On a side note: did you know that the continent of what we now call Africa was known to the Ancients as Libya! I’m reading a book by Herodotus called “Histories” and that’s what he says. What I found was a galaxy in Perseus that will need further investigation. The galaxy is NGC 1275 or Perseus A. The galaxy seemed very, very dim, round in shape with a galaxy on either side of it. Next in Perseus I found an object I’m sure the Ancients could never have seen. My peers give the open cluster a magnitude of 6.5 but it is not even visible in the 8 x 50 finderscope. It appeared as a circle of faint stars crossed with a line of stars towards the bottom. NGC 1499 is known as the California Nebula and I saw it fitting to look for it since that’s where I was observing from. But alas dude, like totally I couldn’t see it man for sure! Maybe it’s just too big like its namesake?

I guess it was around 2 or 3am and the others decided to get up. Well, not the hibernating bear; his alarm went off for about 15 minutes before he got up and turned it off and went right back to his snoring. I knew Charlie and Dave were both observing because I could hear the whir of their ‘scopes slewing around.

The Great Orion Nebula is of course one of the prime viewing objects especially in dark skies. I learned that this area of Orion is called “Orion A” which contains: NGC 1981 an Open Cluster, NGC 1973 a Diffuse Nebula, NGC 1975 a Diffuse Nebula, NGC 1977 a Diffuse Nebula, the last three objects are what traditionally make up the 1st or top star in Orion’s Sword, NGC 1982 (M43: de Mairan’s Nebula) a Diffuse Nebula, NGC 1976 (M42: The Great Orion Nebula) a Diffuse Nebula, the last two objects making up the middle “star” in Orion’s Sword, and NGC 1980 a Diffuse Nebula making the last star in Orion’s Sword. Below the Sword is NGC 1999 which actually has two more diffuse nebulae above it and one below which are IC 427-29 respectively. “Orion B” is where one can find quite a few more nebulae; one of which gave us a bit of trouble. We are talking about the area around the most easterly star in Orion’s famous belt; Alnitak or Zeta Orionis; which is in fact a double star. I will star out with the object we were looking for: the infamous and elusive Horsehead Nebula. Now, Ron from the Sirius Lookers told me that you need a special filter to see the Horsehead. It is neither the OIII nor a UHC filter. I forgot what it was called but remember it was not one of the mentioned ones because he had both of them and we could not see it when we tried for it at Stoneman. Anyway, the Horsehead is listed at NGC 2024 and I found quite a few websites showing pictures of the Horsehead and this designation. It is wrong. I did some research on the NGC/IC website as well as SEDS, Peterson Field Guide and Starry Night Pro. NGC 2024 is in fact what some call the “Running Man Nebula” or “The Flame” and even “The Tank Track Nebula”. This is what we saw that night at Death Valley; nebulosity with a dark lane running through the center located north of Alnitak. Not the Horsehead although we all wanted it to be so. The Horsehead Nebula is really called “B33” (Barnard) or IC 434. So, if you find out something different, please tell me! Other objects around Alnitak are NGC 2023 to the east of B33 and further east is IC 435. On the “Running Man” side are IC 432 to the north and a little west of that is IC 431. Even further north towards Betelgeuse but not considered part of Orion B, just 2 degrees 30’ from Alnitak is where you can find M78 or NGC 2068; objects surrounding this Messier object are: NGC 2064, NGC 2067 & NGC 2071 being northern most and they are all diffuse nebulae. So, which ones did we see? I’m going with NGC 2024 (The Running Man Nebula) only in Orion B and in Orion A: NGC 1973, NGC 1982 or M43, NGC 1976 or M42 and NGC 1980. Ok, that’s it for Orion A & B…a test will follow this discussion.

Feeling brave I went for the Rosette Nebula in Monoceros. For the record the Rosette is called NGC 2237 but I couldn’t see it. I don’t think it was high enough in the sky yet. I don’t know, sounds good to me. I went back to Orion to try and find another diffuse nebula called NGC 1788 but had no luck on that one either. It’s supposed to be just north of the star Cursa that is in Eridanus. Before leaving Orion I checked out an open cluster way above Betelgeuse that is called NGC 2194.

Once again I had the urge to see something previously viewed. I chose the Eskimo, a planetary nebula in Gemini to look at. It was definitely blue but not as pretty as I’d seen it even from my backyard. An object I’ll never see from my backyard is M1 the Crab Nebula. I think the best view was with my Orion 15mm expanse eyepiece without the Nebula filter. I thought about the ancient Chinese who recorded the event and must have marveled at this supernova nearly 900 years ago way back in 1054 A.D.

If I couldn’t see a star in the sky go supernova then at least I could go galaxy grabbing in the river. Eridanus is an area of the sky that I’ve never really surfed around before except for a double star or two. I can only imagine these objects look better from a more southerly location as many of them I was picking up out of the mud. Saving the galaxy grabbing for later I started out with a dying star instead. NGC 1535 is a planetary nebula that I noted as blue with no central star. Ok, now I can go hunting.

NGC 1084 was rather impressive and oval in shape with a bright core. I momentarily jumped out of the river to look into Cetus at a whale of a galaxy called NGC 1052. It was oval in shape and also had a bright core. Being out of the water is not my thing so I dived back and found NGC 1332. I thought it looked a little brighter to one side which I later found out was a separate galaxy known as NGC 1331. I found three other galaxies nearby which were NGC 1325, NGC 1319 and NGC 1315. That’s five galaxies in one shot! It’s finding things like this that attest to the Orion Expanse series and it’s 66 degree FOV!

Finding the southern sky going to the dogs I chose to look at one instead. Actually, it was JC who got me looking around Canis Major. Oh, did I mention he finally got up? JC was working on the Caldwell list and found an interesting object called the “Mexican Jumping Star”. I found what I thought was the object but after comparing it to what he had found, I learned that I was not quite there and had found NGC 2354, an open cluster which is nearby. The Mexican Jumping Star is aka NGC 2362 and is worth crossing the border for anytime. It’s ironic that I had left a “river” to look at this object. The cluster is a bright group of stars with an even brighter star right in the middle. The area around this “central” star seems very, very black in which the star appears to “jump” around in. Now I must kick the dog to the curb and jump back into the river.

Back in Eridanus I found NGC 1232 which I found to appear large but faint and very round. I could discern no real core as its brightness seemed equal throughout. After looking at pictures of this galaxy I’ve decided if I ever go south this will be one of the first objects I look at; the thing looks like it would rival the Pinwheel Galaxy!

An unlucky galaxy in Eridanus is NGC 1300. It was very odd in shape almost like two faint stars with nebulosity around them. Pictures of the galaxy revealed why it looks like this to me. The galaxy does have a very bright core with two arms sweeping out of it that are almost as bright as the core near the point they leave the core. Say “core” one more time!

Having enough of the cool water I decided to jump right into the fire, the fire of Fornax the Furnace that is! My first stop shows a small, elliptical galaxy with a bright core. That would be NGC 1201. The next object really heated up my ‘scope and brought me home. It is NGC 1097. Why did it bring me home you ask? Well…in my line of work in the Emergency Medical System, we use “10” codes. “1097” means “come back to the station”. The galaxy was rather large with a very bright core. I tried for NGC 613 but it must have been closed due to construction. The Sculptor was busy building in the murk and I couldn’t see this galaxy. The next object didn’t need a match to light the fire, it did it pretty much on its own. NGC 1398 was large with a good core and body plus, in the same FOV I could see a planetary nebula! NGC 1360 was very small but definitely blue in color. No central star was visible but that’s ok considering how low it is in the sky. Lastly for Fornax I tried to find NGC 1395. After much searching I finally conceded that if I found it at all it must be a large dim object with about 4 or so stars mixed in with it. Not wanting to give up and unsure that I had even found it at all, I resumed my pursuit. Persistence paid off when I finally, most definitely found it. The galaxy was rather interesting as it is framed by two fairly bright stars. Other then that, the only note is that it is round in shape and uniform in brightness.

Having had enough of the heat, I flew away way with Columba to an area nice and peaceful very near to the horizon. The first object I found was NGC 1808 which appeared elliptical in shape with a dim core. NGC 1792 was about the same size but broader with no core. Going farther into the Southern Constellation I have ever gone, I found a nice Globular Cluster. It is NGC 1851 and was amazingly barely visible in the finderscope. At 90x it appeared no more then a large bright circular patch in the sky. When I bumped up the power to 160x a few of the outer stars seemed to resolve. Anything higher turned the globular to mush. I was very impressed with the Meade 16” Starfinder Dobsonian and my Orion Eyepieces for even being able to detect these last objects. They were a mere 10 degrees above the horizon.

Sometime during my searching I found myself alone in the quite of the desert. The others had gone to bed leaving me to myself. John had retired long ago and Sierra with him. At 4:30 I wrapped up my ‘scope and picked up the camp. I enjoyed a last cigarette and a cold cup of coffee before taking my turn at sleep. Tomorrow would be here soon enough along with the blazing sun before out second night of observing could begin...continued on next page.