Horse tails and chilly weather

[prowler75]

Hello Friends,

The forecast for last night called for clear sky and chilly weather here in central NC. I spent a short while looking at my previous observing logs and a little time with Sky Tools to come up with a list of targets. I have to say over by brief break from the hobby my master observing log moved around the computer quite a bit, got copied, renamed, etc. so I need to sit down and do a little maintenance with it.

Anyway back to last night. I went outside to get a look at conditions and the clear sky from the forecast was partially interrupted by some high thin "horse tail" like cirrus clouds that seemed to be popping up just northwest of my location and drifting over my head. This put a damper on my original plans, but Orion seemed to be mostly free of any obstructions. So here goes my report!

1/20/2020
The temperature was on the chilly side at 23* F so I made sure to include my insulated Carhart overalls and winter jacket to stay comfortable.
I rolled my 12" Dob (Z12) out of the garage and into my backyard. I have to say I really like observing from my fenced in backyard. The house blocks nearly all ground lighting and I don't have to worry about and critters!
Sky conditions were partly clear with fine cirrus clouds drifting through.

M42
Bright Nebula in Orion, Mag: 4.0
How can anyone point a scope at Orion and NOT look at M42. Viewed at 66.7x with my ES 82* 18mm the nebula put on nice view, but there seemed to be a slight lack of some of the fine wispy details I was able to see during my last viewing. I decided to break out my Orion Ultrablock filter and see if there was any difference. The addition of the filter did pay off with many additional fine details coming out that were best viewed with averted vision.

NGC 1980
Bright Nebula in Orion, Mag: 2.50
Since it was so close by I wanted to get a look at this bright nebula/open cluster with the Ultrablock filter. Starting st 66.7x I could easily make out an extended glow surrounding Iota Orionis. I wanted able to make out much detail in the nebulosity, however I could catch additional fine softly glowing wisps extending from M42 in the peripheral of the eye piece.

NGC 1999 - NEW! (at least according the my last excel file)
Bright Nebula in Orion, Mag: 10.0
Again I still had the Ultrablock attached to my 18mm giving me 66.7x magnification. I immediately noticed a smaller knot of fuzz. It kind of reminded me of the faint core of a galaxy. I pulled the filter off the eyepiece and noticed what appeared to be a star with extremely fuzzy edges. I was surely only capturing the very brightest part, but I was not able to make any structure.

The cirrus clouds started to invade the lower part of Orion so I moved back to the top.

NGC 2022- NEW!
Planetary Nebula in Orion, Mag: 11.69
I start by putting my Telrad on Lambda Orionis and used the RACI to get into the general area before moving the eyepiece, again starting at 66.7x mag. Success! I landed nearly right on it and I was able to make a small circular smudge, like someone tapped a dirty pencil eraser straight down. I bumped up the magnification to 109x and then to 150x, but couldn't make out any additional details. I switched back to 109x and attached my 2" Ultrablock filter to my scope's 1.25" eyepiece adapter, careful to make sure the eyepiece was pulled back slightly to not hit the filter. With the filter this PN jumps right out, but doesn't really reveal much more than a circular smudge of light.

NGC 2186 - NEW!
Open Cluster in Orion, Mag: 8.69
Starting at 66.7x magnification there wasn't much to be impressed here. This OC is small and not very well detached from the field. I had to go back and re-create my star hop several times to make sure I even had it. Increasing magnification yielded the addition of some fainter stars, but also the feeling that there were many more just outside view. Almost gave a very slight nebulous appearance in places.

While viewing NGC 2186 the view suddenly dimmed and disappeared behind clouds that were rapidly starting to get on my nerves. My hands were starting to get cold too so I figured this would be a good time to close out the session, but there was still one more object I wanted to check out.

C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) - NEW! (I think)
Comet in Perseus, Mag: 9.3
From an early report I read I got the idea of going after this comet. I put my Telrad on Eta Persei and used the RACI to hop down toward NGC 957.
Nothing really spectacular here, but visible as a faint glow with a definite stellarish brightening just slightly offset from the center. Best viewed with averted vision. I wasn't able to pick up any hints of the tail. Moving up in magnification I actually found the object to get harder to view.

With the comet bagged I decided to call it a night, but I had full intentions of coming back out at 2:30am to try to bag the two SN's in NGC 4636 and M100.

I ended up staying up really late viewing picture and noting the expected positions so I could be prepared. Finally I fell asleep about 1:45 and in what seemed like a few seconds my alarm was going off. I did a quick weather check on my iPhone, clear, and quietly made my way downstairs to put on mt cold weather gear. I went into the garage and grabbed the eyepieces I was intending to use. Since it was late I wasnt going to bother setting up all of my gear. I put my ES 18mm in the eyepiece and put the ES 11mm and two KK orthos in the eyepiece tray on the side of my dob, All set I hit open on the garage door and walked out to about 75% cloud cover! :flame:
My hopes of catching the SN's were dashed and I put everything away and made my way back to bed.

The crappy thing about last night was I trouble getting back to sleep. The combination of spending time out in the cold and little sleep has been feeling quite a bit under the weather today so I am going to end up having too take a pass on tonight's cleat skies to get some rest.

Anyway, that is my report. It turned out to be a bit wordy so thank you all for taking the time to read it!

Clear Skies My Friends!

Craig

[Bigzmey]

Nice session Craig. Congrats on catching the comet! Most of them don't look like much, but I still enjoy hunting them.

[helicon]

Sounds like a great evening out there Craig and for the most part you beat the clouds. I have to put NGC 2022 on my list. I certainly hope you rest up - try some lemon tea, has worked wonders for me as I recently got a cold but got over it in a couple of days thanks to the tea and chewing some vitamin C tabs.

[Thefatkitty]

Nice deal Craig, good for you! Chilly night for sure as well. You got more targets in Orion than I've seen in the past year Nice you saw PANSTARRS as well. Too bad about the SN and all the trouble you went to...!! I know what that's like; "second wind" and you just can't wind down. When you do, the alarm clock goes off...

Hope all is good buddy, and great report!

All the best,

[prowler75]

Nice session Craig. Congrats on catching the comet! Most of them don't look like much, but I still enjoy hunting them.

Thanks Bigz!

Sounds like a great evening out there Craig and for the most part you beat the clouds. I have to put NGC 2022 on my list. I certainly hope you rest up - try some lemon tea, has worked wonders for me as I recently got a cold but got over it in a couple of days thanks to the tea and chewing some vitamin C tabs.

Thanks Michael! I don’t think it so much just that the weather was chilly, it’s more the massive swings we have been having. Last week it was nearly 70°F and today we barely broke 36! It’s going to be an early to bed night so I a, get some rest.

Nice deal Craig, good for you! Chilly night for sure as well. You got more targets in Orion than I've seen in the past year Nice you saw PANSTARRS as well. Too bad about the SN and all the trouble you went to...!! I know what that's like; "second wind" and you just can't wind down. When you do, the alarm clock goes off...

Hope all is good buddy, and great report!

All the best,

Thank you Mark!

I

[bladekeeper]

Well, too bad on the darn clouds!

But, you had a very nice warm-up session in Orion. Next time you go for NGC 1999, look for the dark keyhole in the middle of the brightest part. May need to be at a dark site...

Congrats on the comet too!

Stuffed up with clouds here. Expecting a wintry mix overnight and into the morning. Should be a fun 3-minute drive to work in the morning.

[Juno16]

Sounds like a great night Craig!

Definitely worth getting out in the cold.

Nice catches including the comet. I'm sure that you got some great views with the big dob!

Thanks,
Jim

[Don Quixote]

This is a pleasing report, Craig.
Thank you.

[10538]

Thanks for sharing the fine report Craig! Cold as heck down here on the coast too! I was out on the 16th and tried for the comet but no joy mostly because I was cold and tired near the end of the session. Congratulations on bagging that one! I also spent some time in and around Orion! Such a beautiful part of the sky! Too cold tonight for me!

[John Baars]

Great session!
Very nice you caught the comet as well. You description of it aligns well with what I have seen. Thanks for remembering of NGC2022 and other NGC-s. I will have to try those next time I am in the Orion area. They all suffer from M13 and M92-syndrom: having such a famous neighbor like M42 means that they are seldom visited.
Thanks for your report!