Hello All,
Here is my report:
Equuleus Observatory Report
Date: April 13, 2001
Time: 9:00pm-2:30am
Limiting Magnitude: 6.4
Seeing: 8/10
Transparency: Excellent
Roland Prevost, Attilla Danko, Bruce McGlashan, Mike Zielder, Rob
Robotham and myself joined Mike Wirth at his most excellent
observatory in Perth for a night of wonder.
The drive out to Perth was one of held breath, as the sky was mostly
cloudy all the way there. Bruce and I arrived to find Mike W and
Mike Z already in the observatory, a look up confirmed that the sky
was indeed clearing nicely. Roland, Attilla and Rob soon joined us.
By 9 PM the sky was mostly clear and very transparent. Later,
remarks were made that this was one of the best nights ever at the
observatory. The combination of very transparent skies and good
seeing made for many memorable views of the spring's showpiece
objects.
Conversations ran the gambit from Monty Python to the age of the
universe ("¡some of those scientists are just plain wrong!¡."ad) to
that rush you get when you have a night like this. Great company!!!
Most of what we saw I can never hope to describe accurately but I'll
give it a try!
M51: Holy S**t!!!!!, Good God!!!!, "catch me I'm gonna fall off this
ladder!!!!", these were a few of the catch phrases most commonly used
to describe this site the whole evening, we just kept going back to
it! When I first leaned in to have a look I couldn't breathe for a
second. The spiral structure was EASY to see! The arms were tightly
wound and were mottled in appearance. I rolled my eye around and
absorbed all the detail I could all the while listing off all the
descriptive swear words that came to my mind. Then Mike W said "¡
yeah, isn't it cool, you can even see detail in the companion!¡", The
companion! I hadn't even paid any attention to the companion I was
so enraptured with M51, when I focused my attention there I almost
fell off the ladder again! I could see a definite thick bar like
structure with a curved arm off each end, one was very obviously
attached to M51 proper! Talk about the "observers high", what a
rush!!
M101: Huge!! This is a big galaxy. The spiral structure was easy
to see here as well and all the same descriptive words apply!! The
spiral structure is not as compact as M51 but the arms showed almost
the same amount of mottling. Attilla said to have a look around and
you should find some satellite galaxies. So, I did, and found many!
Later in the night when it was placed in a darker portion of the sky,
we returned and there were many more galaxies to be seen in
neiborhood. Very cool!
NGC 2392: The Eskimo nebula. Very cool!! Viewed with high power
through the 18 inch it was stunning. The nebula, I felt, had a
greenish tinge to it. The central star was easy and when the seeing
was at its best the inner hood was visible with direct vision!
NGC 2371/2: Planetary neb. This is a double lobed or Bi-polar
planetary. Viewed through the 18 inch the two lobes were quite
obviously connected and I could detect the central star 50% of the
time. Not very colourful, but a neat sight none the less.
"The Double Quasar": With guidance from Mike W and Attilla I was able
to locate this very distant object. I was able to hold the "fuzzy
star" about 70% of the time and when the seeing was its best it most
defiantly split. This quasar has a red shift, which suggests it is
8.5 billion light years away. It is being gravitationally lensed by
a galaxy cluster between it and us which is why it appears double and
is bright enough for the 25inch to pick up. I believe I heard someone
say it has a visual magnitude of 15? This is by far the most distant
object I have ever seen, I still can't believe I have seen about half
way back to the Big Bang!!!
M81 and M82: Very cool!! Using Rob's "Termi-nagler"(aka "the holy
hand grenade") 81 and 82 were fit in to the same field of view in the
25 inch. M82 was obviously a galaxy that has had something bad
happen to it. The fact that it is an irregular galaxy was easy to
see with this view. The dark lane, which slices across the middle,
was obvious and the whole galaxy looked very textured. I then swung
my attention to M81. When looked for, I could see two spiral arms,
one on either side of the bright nucleus.
There were other very memorable sights seen this night, like the
sombrero with its very interesting dark lane, the spindle, the black
eye and a new "mystery" galaxy companion to 4565?
I'll let the others comment on these and the other amazing events of
the night!!
Matt "where's my hat?" Weeks
