Subject: Obs report, 9 Apr 2003: Set a course for the Galactic center Date: 9 Apr 2003 (UT) Time: 0805-1100 UT (2:05-5:00 MDT) Location: 5 miles north of Nederland, CO Elevation: 9200 feet Telescope: Criterion 6" f/8 Newtonian on a GEM Eyepieces: 32mm Plossl (38x), 12.5/9/7mm Orthos (98/135/174x), 10mm Siebert (122x), 16.3mm Erfle (75x) Objects: IC 1276, IC 4665, IC 4756, M4, M9, M19, M107, NGC 6118, NGC 6144, NGC 6235, NGC 6284, NGC 6287, NGC 6293, NGC 6342, NGC 6355, NGC 6356, NGC 6369, NGC 6401, NGC 6426, NGC 6440, NGC 6445, NGC 6517, NGC 6539, NGC 6633, NGC 7000, UMi dwarf galaxy I had all the high-declination Herschel 400 objects finished, except for taking another look at the North America Nebula with binoculars. So, this was going to be the first of what I thought might be 2 or 3 early morning sessions to work near the Galactic center. This would be a major change of pace in object type after so many galaxies. It turned out that I observed 4 mornings in a row, losing sleep and burning a bit of vacation time to boot. I could immediately see that the sky was quite transparent, even with the Moon still up. However, seeing was quite poor. As the last vestiges of moonlight were disappearing, I attempted to split the double-double (Eps Lyr) and could only barely get a split of the wide pair (2.5") and just an elongation of the close pair (2.3") at 174x. And, at 45 degrees altitude, this was much higher than most of my anticipated targets! The limiting magnitude was around 6.4 near Polaris, but much worse in the south. I still had one more galaxy to finish, the infamous "blinking" galaxy NGC 6118. Indeed, this proved to be the most difficult galaxy for me to detect on the H400, from a combination of its faintness and its southeasterly location placing it in the outer portion of the Denver-Boulder light dome. But, there was no doubt about the detection at 122x and 135x. It was quite diffuse and about 1 arcminute across. It should be noted that this was not as difficult as some of the off-list galaxies I detected. Heading east toward NGC 6426, I couldn't help but take a look at open cluster IC 4665, one of the better non-Messier OCs. The cluster was naked-eye visible, with about 15 bright stars visible at 38x in a 40 arcminute circle, and at least that many fainter stars. NGC 6426 is a faint globular, and I initially failed to detect it!! As with NGC 6118 I was not waiting for it to climb out of the murk. I tried again, and I think I got myself misdirected the first time, because it wasn't *that* hard. Anyway, it was quite faint, but more than 1 arcminute across, and I sensed some mottling at 122x and 135x. Next was NGC 6633, a bright open cluster. I had seen this one before back in 1986 with my 60mm refractor. It wasn't quite as nice I was expecting, but there were still about 40 stars scattered across 20 arcminutes at 75x, and most were bright. IC 4756 is another bright IC object in close vicinity. This is quite an open cluster! It was impressive even in binoculars, and at 38x I saw about 60 uniformly distributed stars in 50 arcminutes, framed by two bright stars. M107 is one of many objects now on the Messier list that ended up on Herschel's list (recall that it wasn't until the 20th century that the "true" Messier list was sluethed out, and there are still a couple controversies). It's a fairly bright globular, with a prominent 2 arcminute core embedded in a 5 arcminute halo. I could resolve a few stars on the core at 135x, but the halo was mostly just mottled. Still probably the best H400 globular. I then picked up NGC 6517, another faint globular; no stars resolved. There are two more non-H400 globulars very nearby. They were both very faint, but actually had a bit of resolution. NGC 6539 was at least 2 arcminutes across with a few stars visible from 75x on up. IC 1276 was only 1 arcminute across, but I kept seeing a single resolved star at 122x and 135x. I wanted to kill some time to allow some objects to get better positioned, so I went off on a brief goose chase to attempt the Ursa Minor dwarf elliptical, one of our many low surface brightness, low mass satellite galaxies. I didn't see it, and even though skies were good for this location, I think it needs much better. I had already vaguely seen the North America Nebula (NGC 7000) with 7x50s last fall, but decided to look at it again with a little better conditions. It was still not a particularly obvious object, although I could sort of trace out the shape. I happen to think that this is a lousy object to include on a list like this, beyond questions about whether William Herschel actually saw it or not. But, it's on the list, and it is an interesting object from very dark skies. It's certainly not a great object for a telescope with only a little over a degree FOV, although I did do a few half-assed scans at 38x. Globulars forever! At least it seemed that way. I was now getting into the globular heartland, analogous to the galaxy heartland in Virgo and Coma. NGC 6144 is an otherwise overlooked globular 30 arcminutes from Antares and overshadowed by M4. It was faint, but nearly 3 arcminutes across and at least 10 stars resolved at 135x. One of the better H400 globulars. Of course, I couldn't resist a look at M4, which is a fabulous bright object with a lot of resolution and numerous strings of stars. M19 was a good starhopping object, so I looked at that one as well. A very nice contrast with M4, as M19 was bright and compact with only a handful of stars resolved. M19 first led me to NGC 6284 to the north, which was moderately bright and about 2 arcminutes across. It was strongly condensed and displayed strong mottling at 135x, but no confirmed resolved stars. Just east of M19 lies NGC 6293, which was remarkably similar to 6284, except even brighter. If either had shown better resolution, they would have made the "best of" list. Still in the same area, NGC 6287 was faint and diffuse, with some mottling seen across the 2 arcminute disk. NGC 6235 was pretty similar, although I was able to resolve one star near the center. I then drifted northeast to another cluster of globulars. NGC 6342 was faint with hints of mottling. M9 was bright with several stars resolved in the 3 arcminute halo. NGC 6356 was also about 3 arcminutes across and moderately bright. Mottled, but no stars resolved. Continuing east, I went for the close pair NGC 6445 (planetary nebula) and NGC 6440 (globular). These were almost 30 degrees above the horizon, but I experienced a horrible seeing blowup at this point. I was looking for NGC 6445, but the 7th magnitude star 5 arcminutes east looked like a PN itself! Seeing was literally close to 10 arcseconds for nearly a minute. Finally, it settled back down into the 3-4" range. The real PN was faint and round and I didn't detect any detail. NGC 6440 was another faint globular which didn't even seem to show any mottling, even with the seeing back to "normal". I headed southwest to finish off the last 3 H400 objects on the chart. NGC 6401 was a faint and very small globular with no hint of mottling. NGC 6369 was a faint featureless planetary nebula a little over 30 arcseconds in diameter. Finally, NGC 6355 was another faint globular, but at least showed some mottling. I had been working pretty fast; 14 objects in the last hour! (With mostly easy and short starhops between objects, I was still able to average a couple minutes of scope time per object, plus I couldn't really use 174x, so that meant less eyepiece swapping.) I stopped to update my field list and see what I might still try to observe. But, it was getting too light by that point, so I quit. That left just 21 H400 objects. I guessed that I could not finish them in one session. Brian Rachford