Saturday, October, 9 2010, I’ve decided to try Shot Rock.  I met Shneor and Gregg at the site.  This site shows a ton of potential, elevation 7600 feet and excellent skies.  It is on the border of grey and blue on the Bortle light pollution map (The location is actually about 10 miles east of the red pin).  This site is about ¼ to ½ magnitude darker than IHOP. 

Here are some photos of the site.

                                              East                                                                                          South

This view is to the west.  We used the trees to the right of
the photo to shield the Sacramento sky glow to make the site
inherently darker.  The sky glow is much better than at IHOP,
which is already less than Blue Canyon.

Our setup; shneor working on his 22" on the left of my scope in the middle and Gregg working on his 25" f/4.5 on the right.

My setup and my vehicle.

Note: The sky in most of the photos are badly overexposed as I took all of these photos well after sunset.

Despite that this night was slightly below average, we still attained NELM 6.8 to 7.0.  The skies actually improved as the night progressed.  The Milky Way was sugary and the transparency at the horizon was pretty good.  The seeing was average to above average.

Anyhow, straight to my observing comments from my night observing on October 09-10, 2010.  Pretty much straight out of my notebook.

All objects listed here are in my downloadable observing guides.  Enjoy and hopefully you will try of these objects. 

Equipment used:

Kohoutek 3-82  (21 30 51.8  +50 00 05  size 24”  mag 16.0p)

(22” f/4 at 184, 255 and 328x) – Considerably faint round glow with well-defined edges.  Upon examination, the ring structure was picked up and held 100% of the time with O-III filter.  The ring was detectable at 184x, but best at 328x.  100% direct vision with O-III and 100% averted vision without O-III.  About 20” across.  A 15^th mag star lies 5” off the NNE edge and a 16ht mag star lies 5” south.

Kohoutek 3-81  (21 22 15.5  +38 07 13   size 10”   mag 15.4p)

(22” f/4 at 255, 328 and 383x) – Picked up as a very small faint round glow with diffuse edges.  100% direct vision with O-III and 100% averted without O-III.  About 8” across.  A group of four 11 to 13^th magnitude stars bracket the planetary from the NW, S to E.

PK 86-8.1, Humason 1-2  (21 33 08.2  +39 38 12   size 32x20”   mag 12.0v)

(22” f/4 at 184, 383 and 690x) – Appears as a bright irregular glow, roughly 2:1 elongated.  Slightly pointier to the SE.  A magnitude 15.1 star is just off the north edge.  Mild response to the O-III.   100% direct vision even without the filter.  PA = 135° and 0.4’ long.  Probably one of the brightest objects I’ve observed all night. 

IC 5117 (21 32 31.1  +44 35 47   size 6”  mag 11.5v)

(22” f/4 at 255, 328 383 and 690x) – Bright stellar object.  O-III really brings it out.  At 690x, it appears slightly non-stellar.  A 9.6 magnitude star lies 20” east.

Wein 2-245 (21 18 06.9  +43 48 46   size 35”   mag ?)

(22” f/4 at 184, 255 and 328x) – Extremely faint round glow.  Detected only 25% of the time using averted vision and O-III filter at 328x. About 0.5’ across.  A row of 14^th and 15^th magnitude stars lies north to NE.

Abell 83 (23 46 46.9  +54 44 38   size 47”   mag 17.6p)

(25” f/4.5 at 408x) – Extremely faint small round glow.  Even surface brightness.  Popped in and out four times.  It passed the wiggle test.  A 16.6 mag star lies just off the east edge.  About 0.5’ across.  Visible about 25-33% of the time.

Shakabazian 362  (23 32 37  +19 21 34   size 0.9’  n=5 galaxies  mag ?)

(22” f/4 at 383x) – Four very to extremely faint very small round glows in a slight arc appointed with a stellar core for each galaxy.   The arc goes from west to east arcing northwards.    Distance from end to end is 0.8’ long.

Shakabazian 38,  III Zw 22  (01 10 52  +08 19 21   size 1.1’  n=6 galaxies  mag 17.4+)

(22” f/4 at 383x) – Unresolved mass, even surface brightness thin glow.  PA = 60° and 0.5 x 0.1’ in size.  A 15.8 mag star lies 0.4’ SE from the center. 

NGC 1145 (02 54 34.1  -18 38 07   size 3.2x0.5’  mag 13.6p)

(22” f/4 at 184, 255 and 328x) – Faint thin glow with defined edges.  Even surface brightness.  PA = 60° and 2.0’ long.  A bright triangle of 11^th magnitude stars lies to the south and east, with one just east off the NE tip.

NGC 1163  (03 00 22.1  -17 09 11   size 2.8x0.3’   mag 14.7b)

(22” f/4 at 184 and 255x) – Faint thin glow with defined edges.  Seems to be more defined on the west edge.  PA = 135° and 1.1’ long.

NGC 1247  (03 12 14.3  -10 28 50   size 3.3x0.5’   mag 13.5b)

(22” f/4 at 184 and 255x) – Considerably bright thin glow with a brighter round center.   PA = 75° and 2.3’ long.  A very faint star is just on the north edge of the center.  A 16.2 mag tar is 0.5’ north from the center.   Nearby galaxy, Mkn 1071 (PGC 11937) lies 2.6’ SSE and is a faint round glow with well-defined edges.  0.3’ across.

MCG-3-9-41  (03 25 25.0  -16 14 06   size 2.6x0.3’   mag 13.7)

(22” f/4 at 184 and 255x) Low surface brightness thin glow with defined edges.  No central brightening.  PA = 15° and 2.2’ long.

MCG-2-10-9  (03 42 55.9  -12 54 58   size 3.1x0.4’   mag 13.5)

(22” f/4 at 184 and 255x) – Very thin considerably bright glow with diffuse tips.  Slightly brighter slightly elongated center.  1.3’ long, but diffuse tips take it to 2.2’ long.  PA = 30°.  A 11.9 mag star lies 1.6’ west of the north tip.