Took a queue from Phil. Closed the flaps of the THO. Ignited a mosquito coil (fragment), so to fill up the hut with smoke.
Checked the time on the audio recorder. 20 hours left.
Oregon. 44%. 20.5°C. Warm. Third quarter Moon. Air pressure steady. Cloudy prediction. I saw high cloud.
I wondered what the fireflies would be like tonight. But. Didn't feel like doing photography. Dietmar had set up his time lapse slider rig. Aimed south, near the rake, at the Milky Way.
Computer was up and running. But needed to do a few more configuration things. Didn't know where my red light film was... But activated the red mode in SkyTools 3 Pro. In the meantime. Dropped the LCD brightness low. Earlier in the day I had been wondering about the sky conditions so added a bunch of double stars... From the RASC list. Targets, if the sky was not great. That gave me over 50 objects to chase.
Asked Dietmar to contact Ostap. There was a light on in his POD...
Reviewed the wifi signals. Channel 1 from the house was low, to be expected. Channel 11 from the garage was very low. Why? Channel 6 from the weird d-Link in the GBO: non-existent. Argh. Switched to hard line.
Told the N11 to do an align—while the roof was closed. Wondered how it would do with the metal lining everywhere. The date and time were wrong. No surprise there, really. Remembered, again, that I had not collimated the N11...
Opened the roof. Clouds. Clouds everywhere. Sheesh.
10:10 PM. Despite burning a coil, at the south-west corner, I still seemed to be entertaining a lot of mozzies. Lit another coil and put it at my feet, at the "desk," at the south-east corner.
That orangey point in the south? Was is Saturn? Slewed. Had the 36mm installed (78 power). Spotted some moons... Titan, top-right, north-east. Dione in between. Rhea, south-west. For a second, I saw Tethys, very near Rhea.
Phil visited me. He said there were "no stars to speak of." Offered a look. He initially saw 3 moons. 2 o'clock, 4, 8:30-ish, close, very close in. The whole view was shimmering.
He shared he had he some operator errors. Cables in the incorrect ports. He went back at it.
I looked, from the THO, at the red LED solar lights. In the runway. I had replaced the batteries in the north-west and the centre-east posts. They were working. Equal brightness. Good. Noticed the GBO roof was open. Millie was there.
Noticed some stars near Lyra. And the Swan.
Tried to go to 26 Cyg. The go-to slew action was not working. Realised, after a time, I had the settings wrong. Wrong ASCOM driver. Duh.
Frickin' clouds.
Finally arrived the double star from the RASC Coloured Doubles list. Huh. 26 Cyg is a five star system, according to SkyTools 3 Pro! Gold and blue? It was hard to tell. Colours, yellow and blue, according to the RASC. Saw it for a second before it dimmed out. Clouds. Crap. [ed: Sissy Haas describes the stars as "pretty... citrus-orange and whitish lilac." Does not refer to stars the other than A and B. Webb says yellow or gold and blue.]
There was a bright star to the east... In-line. Ah. Z.
Took another look in the eyepiece. And did not see stars anywhere. I decided to check the weather. The NOAA infrared. Ah. Looked like it might push off. OK. So I decided to hang in. Not give up.
Checked the computer. AB were 41" apart. Widely split. BC were a fraction of the distance. A fifth. At a right angle. Learned that D, at mag 15.8, in the opposite direction, would not be visible. Meh. Clouded out!
Turned the roof. Slewed south. Antares. A double—but tough. Switched eyepieces, too much power. Shimmering too much. Too soft. Even at mid-power I could not see the companion... They are close but different mags. According to ST3. Low. Extincted.
Skies were improving. All of Scorpius. Scutum. All of Aquila. All right! The Teapot was murky, over Toronto. Not a lot of fireflies though. Boo.
Saw a meteor going from the north to the south. Heading toward the pincers of the scorpion. From Ophiuchus. In Serpens. The right-hand one. Cauda or Caput? [ed: Caput.] Fairly long train. A very late June Lyrid? Surely not a Ophiuchid.
The sky continued to clear! The south was good... Bad in the west. Could see Lyra, again. And still, I could not split the A and B stars of Antares... It was a good time to look at it though—mid July.
Wanted to make sure the telescope and computer were working well. Exited ST3. When it came back up, I checked it was synced. It worked. But that didn't seem right. I don't think I did that before... Something funny about that process. Checked for the cross-hair in ST3 for the Celestron pointing. Yep. There. Close. Still had not done the cable wrap option. Connected.
There was something going on in the GBO...
I could see the Milky Way. Above Aquila. Heading into the spout. Huh. Definitely getting better. South-east was looking quite dark.
I went to Aquila. Or a target in Aquila. Changed the eyepiece. Turned the roof, of course. Viewed 11 Aquilae with the 36mm. Colourful. Noted a very bright star to the north: 10. Saw the A and B stars, of 11. Saw a double off to the right-hand side. Used the "companions" keyboard shortcut to display the double star labels. Not really a double HD 176484 (southward) and HD 176483 (northward). Not at the same angle as 11 AB. Yellow and blue? Very different magnitudes. SkyTools said 5.2 and 8.9. C star. I could not see it. It was not shown in the Context Viewer. ST3 said it was mag 12 point something. Should have been visible... Separation was 78.3". Not outrageous. But simply not shown in the field of view chart... I added STF2424C to the observing list. As a reminder. To look into. View later. Figure out. OK. Maybe its blue, 11 Aql B.
[ed: This is another example of the funny issue with SkyTools and multiple stars. In fact, the A, B, and C stars show in the Interactive Atlas, when one plays with the Fainter setting. For example, zoomed to 36mm field in the IA, with ML set at 16.0, the C star shows up. To the west of B. However it never appears in the Context Viewer. When one clicks the AC button in the Object Information dialog, it says the C star is mag 12.4. Giving the impression that it is accessible. However, when one chooses the star directly, the data on Σ2424C (Struve), apparently from the source USNO-A2.0, shows the magnitude as 15.59. Not visible. And in turn the data used for the display in the charts. Is this an error? I don't know. Greg and I have talked this before, how the double star buttons in the OI window draw data from a different source that what's used for display purposes. It threw me at the time. And at the time I didn't think to play with the IA. This suggests that C is out of range.]
The sky was getting better. Took a break. It was a chance to get the red film filter, wherever I put it. When I returned from break, I found the mosquito coil was still going. OK.
11 Aquilae was higher now. Blue star. Pretty. Nice. Nice field.
Changed ST3 to only show objects above the 2x air mass. The sky was still not great.
Stay in Aquila, I thought. Went to NGC 6781. A large object. A planetary nebula. Looked like a flame! Large. Shown in ST3 as a circular object. Although the text description said "irregular" object. But I thought there was something going up. A non-circular shape. There was a pattern of stars nearby that looked like the digit 7. Bumped up the power, with the 26mm (107x). Had a good look. Very interesting. I guesstimated the size of the object. Measured the diameter in ST3: 2 arcminutes.
[ed: The image at NOAO echoes what I felt. Round on one side; open on the other. If the open end is up, it gives a strong impression of a flame in a fire.]
At the higher power, I saw Burnham 1256A, aka HD 180994, at the edge of the field. A very tight pair. But I did not make any comments on it...
Felt I was losing my dark adaptation at the computer. Left to get the red film. And elastics. Talked to Phil. And Dietmar. Unfortunately, he had torn down his rig. Returned and immediately installed the red screen. Turned off the backlight and key illumination on the NexStar hand controller. Lowered the observatory lighting.
Went to R Scuti. Spotted the cluster Basel 1 (seen before, 2 years ago). Brighter than PPM 707310 (mag 9.8). Not as bright as HD 173744 (mag 7.1). I estimated the magnitude to be around 8. ST3 said it was 6.4—I would disagree with that. The software says it ranges from 4.2 to 8.6 over 147 days. Orangey colour. On second viewing, I was confident in my brightest assessment.
Spotted double star below, to the south east, HD 174005. (Which I had observed before, 2 years ago, also. [ed: From TLAO.]) Centred on it. White primary. Widely separated, 38". Quite different, the stars. C is very faint.
The update frequency in the Real Time view was a little irksome.
It was time to return to Cygnus. I had a ton of targets there. Went back to 26 Cygni. Lots of interesting stuff going on. There was a very orange star, in-line with 26 Cyg A and B. To the south of 26. About 6 times the AB separation. Almost red. Ah. That star is the variable Z Cygni. Hence the colour. Gauged brightness. It was brighter than the B star (mag 8.8) aka SAO 49100. Looked again. Confirmed. SkyTools says it is an M-class star. Cool! Brightness ranges from 7.1 to 14.7. Wow. That's a big difference. It changes over 264 days. Over a Terran year... Neat. I pegged it around mag 7 to 8. So, near the peak!
26 is a five star system. Primary is yellow. B was faint. RASC said it was blue... Spotted the E star of 26 Cyg. Off to the north. About 5 times the distance of the AB pair; opposite direction. Almost in-line again. Mag 11.0. No problem. Could not see the C star. [ed: Correction. Yes, I could; it was D component I could not see.] It was mag 12.9. Bumped the power from the 36mm (78x). It enhanced the colours: A, yellow; B, blue. But could still not eyeball the C [ed: Er, D!]. Looked along a right-angle to AB and AE and 26-Z. No luck. D is mag 16. D is opposite C.
[ed: So to be clear, I viewed all the possible components of 26: A, B, C, and E. Later in the audio sequence, I heard "C, no problem." D would require big aperture.]
[ed: My audio notes were very confusing at this stage. Between hoping around to 26 and Z and the VOX dropping out and forgetting to use the time stamp and the lack of clarity... Possibly I referred to the double star HD 189702 far to the north from 26, well beyond E. The A and B stars are mag 7.1 and 12.0 respectively. They are separated by 13.4 arcseconds. A number which I think I misread as the brightness of B... Awfully far afield though.]
Was getting frustrated with the very frequent updating in the Real Time view. I wondered if there was a way to change it. Applied the constellation filter in hopes of speeding the updates.
Oops. West was up; not north.
Milky Way was visible. To the Mark I Eyeball. Without my eyeglasses. It was a better sky than Sunday night. Really glad I stayed...
Decided to visit 17 Cygni (aka Σ2580). A quad system. Went back to the 36mm. Pretty. The A and B stars are 5.0 and 9.2. Yellow and blue stars. RASC says red and blue! Huh? That's not red. [ed: Haas only reports on the A and B stars. Says grapefruit-orange and misty. Uh huh. Webb: very yellow and blue. Smyth: golden yellow and pale blue. Where the Hyades did RASC get red?] Oh wait. There was a reddish star below... C is mag 9 as well. D formed an equilateral triangle with A and C. Interesting.
Considered the view of field orientation... On a equatorial mount, if you don't move or rotate the eyepiece, and slew to a new target, you still know where north and west are. But with an alt-az (or fork), it is always changing. Field rotation. That's what was messing me up before. And again tonight. I just have to remember: the orientation will change from target to target... West was now around the 10 o'clock position for me. Not up. Coyotes!
Lots going on. Lots of stars. Saw a little triangle near to 17. [ed: Location not documented.] Just assumed they were field stars. Spotted (to the south) a little slightly bent line of stars nearby: TYC 02660-0366 1, -0004, and -0403. Caught my eye. Dim, between magnitude 9.5 and 10.5. But unrelated.
Noted the reddish star off to the side, to the left, or south-west. HD 186858 (aka Σ2576). A K3 class star. Orangey. Also a double! Er. A quad. SkyTools said the AB pair were 2.98" apart. Tight. But equally bright. Almost the same. I did it. Yeh. Saw that they were perpendicular to the A-B-D of 17. Almost in-line with the bent line. Both orangey. No problem with A and B; C and D were in the mag 14-15 zone. A fast moving pair, 232 years. A 7.7 and B is 8.6, mag. Cool stuff.
[ed: The WDS is interesting with respect to this multi-star system. It is actually considered part of 17 Cyg! That is, pair WNO AF bridges the 13 arc-minute gap between Σ2580A to Σ2576A! Yep. It's so confusing, I think a table will help...
| ST3P name | WDS name |
| 17 Cyg A and STF 2580 A | STF 2580 A |
| 17 Cyg B and STF 2580 B | STF 2580 B |
| 17 Cyg C and STF 2580 C | STF 2580 C |
| 17 Cyg D and KPR 4 D * | KPR 4 D |
| J194634.0+334357 ** | KPR 4 E |
| HD 186858 A and STF 2576 A | WNO 56 F and STF 2576 F |
| HD 186858 B and STF 2576 B | STF 2580 G and STF 2576 G |
| HD 186858 C and STF 2576 C | STF 2576 H |
| HD 186858 D and STF 2576 D | STF 2576 I |
* 17 Cyg D: SkyTools shows mag 13 D star in different location.
** J194634.0+334357: SkyTools shows mag 12 star in different location.]
Checked the mosquito coil. A little smokey at times. Was it bothering my throat?
Green blinking, above! An airplane? No. A firefly visited the THO! He flew inside the roof. Ha ha. He stopped blinking when I shone my red LED on him. Lots out in the field.
Slewed to HD 189751. From the RASC Coloured Doubles list. Very close pair. Closer than some of the others. They are 11" apart. Mag 7.0 and 10.4.
Spotted a narrow wedge triangle pointer to the north, with a very bright star at the tip. It was HD 189864. ST3 said it was a quintuple system. Saw the B, C, D stars, no problem. Four stars. E was not possible to split, at 0.25", beside the luminous A! D was very faint. A little surprised it would not be included in the RASC list. Very interesting.
Another firefly! But he turned his butt off when I got close. Can he see me in the dark? [ed: They have compound eyes!]
It was around midnight. The sky looked good. Milky Way was good. Straight up was clear. Great Square was rising.
Something flashed through the eyepiece. Thin straight line. Like a satellite but fast. Really fast. A meteor?
Viewed NGC 6946, aka Arp 29. Big! Huge! In the 36mm. Oval shape, oblong. Mottled? An irregular? I nudged it to centre. Flanked by some stars. A equilateral triangle on the left (south, Tycho stars, mag 10 to 13) and a double (or pair) on the right (north, Tycho). ST3 said it was a spiral, nearly face-on. Huh. As an Arp, I thought there might be something strange about it. It wasn't smooth, amorphous. 11' by 10' in size. In the RASC 40 Brightest galaxies, Finest NGC, Herschel 400, TAC lists... I had added it to my "showpieces." Is this a good idea? Right on the Cepheus and Cygnus border. Bright stars nearby. North-west was HD 196085; west, HD 196053. [ed: It is also known as the Fireworks galaxy and Caldwell 12.]
Uncomfortable. Put the mozzie coil out.
When I panned right, or north-west, I spotted something. According to ST3, NGC 6939. A large, loose open cluster. Over in Cepheus. About the same size as the galaxy. Maybe slightly larger. Similar to what Sharmin and I were looking at a couple of nights back.
12:35 AM, July 3, 2013. Bullfrogs were going. Break time. Bio-break. Took some antacid. Grabbed a bottled water. Bumped into Dietmar. He had torn down his time lapse Konova slider rig. Now a little irked. Millie was in the GBO. She wanted to know if I was gonna be up for a while. Nervous about closing the roof. Phil, in his bedroom, was frustrated. Conflicts. Cable issues. Asked about getting out the Obsession. Too tired.
12:47 AM. Back from break. Realised I had forgotten to hit the Divide button earlier. Oops.
Went to 52 Cygni. Sounded very familiar... Oh yeah. In the Veil Nebula (west element). Didn't realise it was a double star. It was on my observing list from the RASC coloured doubles. Curious to view it as a double system. And not in green! Long slew. THO roof jammed up half-way 'round. Very hard to turn. Argh. Very bright star. Oh my. Super tight. 4 or 5 magnitudes different. ST3 concurred: 4.2 and 9.5. At a separation of 6.4". Wow. Colour: I thought orange and dark orange. Hard to tell... Not yellow and blue. Tough split. Used the 18mm. [ed: Haas says "whitish pumpkin orange and grayish sapphire." Wow.] Could not see any nebulosity...
12:57. Decided to go to 61 Cyg. Even though I had already logged it. On my "view again." In a lot of observing lists! Slewed. Put in the wide field ocular. Near a backwards 7. Widely separated, A and B, I guessed 40; software said 31. Secondary slightly fainter than the primary. Oh. ST3 showed it as a 5, er, 6, star system. 11 light years away. A pretty system.
1:04. Saw all the elements. Cool. Including the C. I think that is why I had the C star noted separately, SAO 70912.
1:12. Heard a mosquito. [ed: And then they buzzed the recorder!] Flipped the hoodie up.
Went to NGC 7129 in the middle of Cepheus. From the RASC Finest. Spotted a small, tight pattern of stars. Bright stars. Interesting curved shape. Very compact. The stars to the south-west are brighter, slightly. Immediately I noticed a smudge or glow within the stars. Definitely there. A nebula. The fuzzy was centred within the stars. SkyTools showed the blob and labelled it Small Cluster Nebula. Uh huh. Imaginative name, yes? A diffuse nebula. Oh. Hold on. ST3 says it is a supernova remnant! Reminded me of some photos you see of the Pleiades, with the nebula weaving within the stars.
[ed: Found a great image at APOD.]
ST3 showed something off to the left (south-east). A large open cluster. Very faint stars. NGC 7142.
Synced. Wondered about putting the computer on a mobile platform. So to have it near the eyepiece. That'd be nice. But I'd have to worry about wires...
1:23. Tried to see NGC 40. In a bunch of observing lists. Got lucky finding it. Not initially in the field. Hit the Right button and stumbled across it. Put in a high power eyepiece. Looked good in the 9mm. Almost perfectly round. A cool object. Darker region around the star, then brighter, further away. ST3 says the central star is mag 11. Nice. Nice field too. Lots going on.
1:35. Perseus was rising. Not a lot of fireflies now. I wondered if it was a time thing or temperature. Could see the Andromeda galaxy naked eye.
1:42. Tried to spot the Bubble Nebula but could not detect it. Big object, according to the software! Mag 11. Near M52... Software said it was "difficult." Yes.
1:47. Went for comet C/2012 F6 (Lemmon). Saw it! Easy. Panned down a bit to NGC 7789 (which sounded familiar) to confirm my location. Interesting shape; not round. Fan shaped. Near a little triangle of stars. Bright coma. Big. Very nice! That made me very happy, for some reason.
1:53. Decided to take in Draco objects.
2:02. Found the goto off. Had to pan to the right—a lot. Disconnected the software then reconnected. Tried to get the sync working.
Found the lovely double HR 6983. Stark colours. Yellow and blue, RASC says. I thought they were about 1 mag different. Nope, 3.
2:06. Confirmed I was in the right spot. I could see the A and C stars. B is not an option. C, obvious. D was far away but much fainter (ST3 says 14.7!?). Dull. Could not detect a colour to D.
Spotted a faint tight double to the left (north). BEM 34A. Equally bright (mag 11) stars. Kinda cool.
Next up: ο (omicron) Draconis. Neat. Wide. Yellow and blue. RASC says they are lilac and green! Crazy. A three star system. C was much fainter, mag 11. But in-line. Maybe A is orange. Very attractive. Would also work at very low power.
2:14. Slewed to NGC 6503. Ooh. Nice. Sliver. Very thin, this galaxy. Quite large. Oblong. Edge on spiral. Near bright star HD 163465, mag 8.6. Very bright. Surprisingly bright galaxy. Angled NW to SE.
Noticed new objects showing up on the list, due to the time. Bonked my knee on the tripod. Would have thrown off my SP-C8. Fortunately the 'scope is very heavy. Good thing and a bad thing.
2:24. Headed to NGC 4605 in UMa. Off a little bit. Figured out where I was. Panned and found the galaxy. About the same size as 6503. It's north west edge seemed dark. Dust, in front? A little low. It might be better to view in the winter...
[ed: Looked at Tenho Tuomi's images. Wow. Very mottled. In the close-up, it seems a tiny bit darker on the top-right, which is north-west.]
After syncing, went to a Camelopardalis target. NGC 2655. A spiral. Oriented straight up and down. North-south. Neat. A bit smaller than the previous. It seemed to me a little odd that it was on the Finest list.
2:34. Remembered (at last) a faster, better way to sync. As opposed to completely quitting the application; I simply disconnected and reconnected the 'scope, in the software, after syncing. Quicker.
2:41. Spotted NGC 2715. Initially I had noted it near 2655 in the Interactive Atlas. It was extremely faint. Strange oblong little smudge. Near the 11.6 mag star TYC 04544-1844 1.
Roof jammed again. Very difficult to move. Grrr.
2:52. Viewed 1 Pegasi. A double from the RASC list. Orange and violet? Near a large flying V.
2:54. Viewed NV Peg. A variable. Wider separation, a tick more, the A-B. A, B, and C formed a little triangle. Much fainter companions. Saw a double that was not a double. Opposite orientation to 1 Peg.
Checked weather stations. Outdoor: covered in dew. Indoor: 67%, 15.7°C, pressure was dropping. Heard a low sound. Millie was closing the GBO roof. Good stuff.
3:02. Super wide. Crazy wide. HD 224083. From RASC OH. It says yellow and red. Haas says lemon and cherry! No commentary on colours from yours truly.
Oh. Interesting. Very tight. Close. V343 Peg. RASC OH said yellow and blue.
[ed: The SkyTools observing list showed HR 8833 as seen. But I did not hear any remarks on the recording...]
Decided to call it quits. Remembered to disconnect the computer software first. Hibernated the 'scope. Packed up the computer for the house.
3:10. Outside the observatory, I saw the Moon rising... Good timing!
What a great night! Initially, not looking good. But I persisted. Started out aiming in large sucker holes. Stayed in a particular constellation. Which has the fringe benefit of reducing roof rotation. It was a kick seeing the comet!
§
A problem emerged on playback of the audio notes. There were times where the Sony cut out. Volume too low. Not speaking loud enough. Too far away. It made for some sporadic remarks. Will need to do something about this...
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