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Saturday Night Viewing at Area 51 in Big Cypress National Preserve
November 13, 2004
Jeffery Kramer
I was at Area 51 with my Celestron 6" goto refractor. I observed for about
6 hours (from 6:15PM to 12:15AM). The night was clear at times and hazy at
others. The transparency was very good when the haze would disappear and
would get poor when the haze would return. The sky was very clear after
about 10PM. In addition the seeing was good about a 7. The Milky Way was
arching through the sky and was showing some structure. M31 and the Double
Cluster were easy naked eye objects. Attendees included Fred with his 14"
LX200GPS, Ron with his 18" Starmaster, Paul with his 4.5" Nexstar, and some
other astronomers with scopes such as 5.1" Meade reflector, a Meade ETX-105,
a small homemade 6" reflector, and an Orion 8" Dob.
I started off with M31, M32, and M110 and they looked very nice in the
refractor which framed all three within the FOV of my 41mm Panoptic at
29x as well as a little higher at 60x with my 20mm Nagler. Next, I
turned to the Ring Nebula (M57) and it looked quite bright under a
dark sky. After the Ring, I took a peek at M56, M13, and M92. M13
and M92 were very low in the western sky but the scope still started
to resolve them near their edges. I saw that Sagittarius was still up
and took a look at M16 (Swan) and M17 (Eagle). The Swan Nebula has become
one of my favorites as it truly looks like it’s name. I looked at the
following additional Messier objects tonight: M1, M2, M27, M29, M33, M34,
M35 (and NGC2158), M36, M37, M38, M39, M41, M42 (5-stars in the Trapezium
were visible in my scope, all 6 were visible in the 8" and larger scopes),
M43, M52, M72, M73, and M103.
I also viewed the following Caldwell Objects: C15 (Blinking Planetary
Nebula -- which I could see blinking in and out!), C20 (the North America
Nebula -- using Fred’s OIII filter, I saw this nebula for the first time
and it was very impressive and I could trace part of the outline of
North America). C33 & C34 (the Veil Nebula -- again viewed using Fred’s
OIII filter -- the Veil was beautiful arching through the eyepiece).
NGC253 (Sculptor Galaxy) looked pretty impressive as a long, thin
haze in the eyepiece and NGC7009 (Saturn Nebula -- it looked nice but
I could not see the Saturn shape). Lastly, I split Eta Cass, Alnitak
in Orion, and Beta Mon -- the triple star in Monoceros). I finished
the night with a quick look at Saturn and could see Cassini’s Division
on the edges of the rings even though Saturn was pretty low in the
eastern sky.
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Fred Lehman
Although the sky had been adorned with puffy clouds the entire day, it
was clear over the beaches and the clearness had been slowly gaining on
the cloudiness all afternoon. By sunset, clearness had won control of
the skies, and there was little or no twinkle in the early evening
stars. The mosquitoes were another story, however. Normally, I refrain
from applying DEET till after I have completely set up my scope and
installed all the eyepieces, tolerating a few bites in order to keep my
scope free from the oily repellent. Tonight, the mosquitoes were so
ferocious that I had not yet even fully positioned my tripod before
their aggressive attacks drove me to spray my body and clothes wet with
DEET. The mosquitoes were relentless and many re-applications of
repellent were needed throughout the evening.
The night proceeded nicely, with periods of haze alternating with stable
clarity. When the sky was hazy, the several attendees (and the mosquitoes)
congregated around Ron D'Oria's 18" Starmaster to discuss the problems of
the world. Although there were many ideas and opinions put forth, no hard
conclusions were drawn from them. In spite of our lack of progress on
world affairs, we all had a good time and no heavenly object escaped our
grasp.
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