Subject: Obs report, 1 Feb 2003 (UT): Thar she blows!

Date: 1 Feb 2003 (UT)
Time: 0400-0810 UT (9pm-1:10am MST) 
Location: 5 miles north of Nederland, Colorado
Elevation: 9200 feet
Telescope: 6" f/8 Newtonian
Eyepieces: 32mm Plossl (38x), 12.5/9/7mm Orthos (98/135/174x),
  and occasionally a 16.3mm Erfle (75x)
Objects: M46, M47, NGC 2204, NGC 2215, NGC 2286, NGC 2301,
  NGC 2311, NGC 2324, NGC 2335, NGC 2343, NGC 2423, NGC 2438,
  NGC 2613, NGC 2811, NGC 2874, NGC 3156, NGC 3166, NGC 3169,
  NGC 3310, NGC 3631

Yet again, I wasn't sure exactly how good the weather would be.
The forecast was for partly cloudy skies and some wind, that is
an accurate assessment of the condition I found.  The clouds
affected the observing a little bit, but my plan included
objects across a good chunk of the sky.  The wind was a
significant problem.  This site is a clearing in a forest and
the wind swirls through this area erratically.  The peak gusts
at ground level were very strong, abrupt, and sometimes the wind
would shift 180 degrees in a few seconds.  I measured gusts to
20 mph at eye level, and it was stronger at times.  I thought I
might stay out for 6-8 hours and get 40 or so Herschel 400
objects, but in "survival" mode my efficiency was reduced.  At
least the temperature was quite mild, remaining in the upper 30s
(F) all night.  The naked-eye limiting magnitude near Polaris
was 6.2 and the seeing was lousy.

I poked around at a few bright objects waiting for some clearing
in the south to work on open clusters, but that wasn't happening
so I decided that the bowl of the Big Dipper was high enough to
go for some galaxies.  I quickly found M108, which I've already
logged, and right after that it was already clearing up south!

But, I continued with the other H400 galaxies on the same
Uranometria chart as M108.  Nothing very impressive; NGC 3631
and NGC 3310 both had fairly prominent cores, and actually the
former was sort of "bright" overall.

I went after a non-H400 galaxy with a "to scale" symbol on the
way back to Beta UMa, NGC 3448.  This is on the full Herschel
list and was just a very faint smudge.  It has a very low
average surface brightness and I only caught a small fraction
of its true size.

There are three more H400 galaxies on the chart, arranged in
a one-degree long north-south line, NGC 3610, NGC 3613, and NCG
3619.  Again, none were particularly interesting or bright,
although NGC 3610 had a fairly prominent core.

At this point, with the chart finished, I couldn't ignore the
clear skies around Sirius.  It stayed clear enough for me to bag
quite a few southerly open clusters that were near or had
cleared the meridian and thus were out of the worst of the
Denver/Boulder light pollution.  Low in the sky with already
poor seeing, I generally limited my observations to 98x.

I think the worst of the bunch was the first one, NGC 2204.  It
was fairly small and non-descript.  Ten degrees north, NGC 2215
was actually kinda pretty with about 30 stars uniformly
distributed across 9 arcmin.

NGC 2324 is quite small and the poor seeing was a problem here
as I could get hints of quite a few unresolved stars beyon the
15 or so I did see at 98x.  My notes indicate "slightly -blong"
which I believe means that the cluster appeared slightly
elongated instead of circular.  (My handwriting isn't great
anyway, but with the high winds I take notes by poking my upper
body into the open car window where the logbook is laying flat
on the 12 gallon plastic tub that I fill with gear and clothing.
That doesn't lend itself to great penmanship.)

Anyway...the clusters started betting better.  NGC 2301 is
certainly very interesting.  Some people mention the "T" shape,
but the way it was in my field of view didn't really suggest
that.  My immediate thought was to call it the "VLA" cluster
because of the "Y" shape.  Then, it occurred to me that it was
sort of a backwards "lambda", so maybe it should be the "Grus"
cluster, after the shape of the constellation, which I've only
seen thanks to observing runs at Kitt Peak in Arizona.  In any
case, there is a nice core of relatively faint stars with a line
of 5 bright stars sticking out to the south.  The odd shape was
even apparent in the 6x30 finder and at one point I used it as
part of a starhop through the finder.

NGC 2286 had a decent number of stars, but was spread out and
hard to distinguish as a cluster.  Its 20 arcmin size made it a
better object for the wide field of the Erfle at 75x.  

NGC 2311 was only 5 arcmin, but stood out well.  I really needed
better seeing for this one.

NGC 2335 and NGC 2343 were both in the same interesting field
not far from Sirius and on the edge of the huge nebula IC 2177
(the Seagull Nebula; not seen and not really attempted).
Anyway, NGC 2335 was not well-defined but not a bad cluster.
NGC 2343 was a small, but loose group of fairly bright stars,
and quite easy to see.

I moved one chart east to one of the more loaded 2 degree fields
in the "Sirius district".  First, I got out my 7x50s to see M46
and M47 so I could use the Telrad to get right to it.  I was
also able to get M47 naked-eye, which isn't very hard but the
first time I've recorded such an observation.  M46 probably
wasn't much below naked-eye visibility.  Of course, M47 is one
of the best H400 open clusters and it is only a oddity of
history and a lack of care by Messier that it ended up on
Herschel's list even though it is now considered a Messier
object.  (See http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m047.html)

Immediately north of M47 lies NGC 2423 which is a nice cluster,
with about 60 stars in 20 arcmin at 98x.  But, destined by fate
to be under-appreciated due to its location.

M46, a degree east of M47, is not on the Herschel list (because
Messier didn't screw up its position), but has a fairly bright
planetary nebula, NGC 2438, on its face.  The cluster itself is
maybe even prettier than M47, because even though the stars are
much fainter, it is also richer.  I saw about 75 stars in a
slightly oblong 30 x 25 arcmin region at just 75x.  The nebula
is on the north side of the cluster and was reputed to be easy
to find.  I was using 133x with an 18 arcmin FOV so I moved off
to the north a bit and didn't see anything; "easy"?  Your
*other* north, doofus.  Oh, there it is.  Pretty easy, and
fairly bright.

I was growing progressively more hacked off at the wind, but
wanted to keep observing.  I decided to fill in a few galaxies
in the same general area.  NGC 2613, NGC 2811, and NGC 2874 were
all faint and unremarkable, although NGC 2613 ought to be pretty
nice from much farther south.  I had pretty serious problems
getting to NGC 2811 due to a complicated starhop in the high
winds.  The wind wouldn't move the scope by itself, but if I was
trying to move a small distance the wind would help me overshoot
the mark.  

I was slowly progressing northward, and ended up at the pair
NGC 3166 and NGC 3169, 3.5 degrees above the Celestial Equator
in Sextans.  However, there are actually 4 NGC galaxies in this
field.  The starhop took me to little group of stars just south
of the 2 main galaxies, so I looked for NGC 3156.  This was
very faint, but just off of a distinctive triangle of stars.
This one is included on the Herschel II list.

After this, I bumped the declination axis of the mount and had
to find the damn field again.  Luckily, this is a fairly easy
starhop from Alpha Sextantis.  NGC 3166 and 3169 are sometimes
called "The Eyes" because of their configuration.  Again, the
orientation of your field makes a difference, and I was
observing them with east-west as the vertical axis, so I didn't
see them as eyes.  Anyway, NGC 3166 was the brightest, but still
not particularly bright.  It was also only about 1 arcmin, while
NGC 3169 was a bit larger and fainter.

I kept looking for NGC 3165, which continues the line from 3169
through 3166.  At 135x, I kept seeing an extremely faint object,
which I thought might be a fuzzy, at the apex of a right
triangle with NGC 3166 and a very faint star.  I would only see
it for a second or so at a time, but I did a quick sketch of the
field.  I checked the DSS scan when I got home, and NGC 3165 is
pretty pathetic!  Now I'm thinking that maybe I saw the faint
star between NGC 3165 and NGC 3166, and the poor seeing helped
turn the faint star into something that didn't look sharp enough
to be a star.  The other faint star to the south was clearly a
star, but was brighter.  The integrated V magnitude of NGC 3165
is only 13.9, albiet the average surface brightness of 22.8
magnitudes per arcsec^2 is not impossible, *if* I could see
enough of it.  I detected NGC 3187 a few nights ago with a total
V magnitude of 13.4, and that was a certain detection, albiet
very difficult.  Anyway, I'm assuming a non-detection of NGC
3165.  I'll have to try again sometime, maybe with better seeing
and/or a bigger telescope, and/or darker skies.

By this time I was physically ready to quit.  Fighting the wind
and being the end of the work week was just too much, even
though I had wanted to stay out longer.

Brian Rachford