OR: Four observing nights at the Steens, Night 3

[Akarsh Simha]

(Continued from my previous OR post)

The next day at the Steens was about the same. The daytime temperatures were just the right amount of warm, although the wind sorta made me chilly, while the sun was just real nice. The first couple nights had been a bit breezy too. I did the usual stuff, caught up on some more work on Sunday in preparation for Monday's work day. I also learned that I could go take a dip in the lake to wash off the fine mud which was otherwise very bothersome, similar to the famed "OSP dust" — good training for the next new moon. Despite being at 7000 feet, the sun would warm up the lake during the day and it was very manageable to dunk into.

In the evening, Howard kindly took some pics of me with my scope.

The night started out on NGC 4651, the Umbrella Galaxy, on Howard’s 30”. Initially, I mistook its spiral structure for the Umbrella feature, but that turned out to be a lot tougher. In fact, I didn't see the umbrella and was only able to pick up some hints of the tidal stream leading to that feature.

R Jay GaBany’s picture of the Umbrella culled from Wikipedia

A few objects later, I pointed the scope to the Pinwheel Galaxy, M 101. The sky conditions were so good, I just was mesmerized by the view. I couldn't help myself but sketch it for some time, so I spent about half an hour making a rough imprint of what I saw. Knots studded the spiral arms, of which the outer ones were still a bit subtle. The core region actually showed vague sensations of a swirl of dust that I was overjoyed to detect because I hadn’t expected it — I tried my best to capture whatever was definitive in the sketch.

Then I walked up to Howard's telescope and he was looking at M 106, a fascinating active galaxy. It's known to have a maser (the microwave equivalent of a laser) shooting off its core. The inner body showed what looked like an intermediate spiral structure. I also picked up on some hints of its diffuse outer halo going in the general direction of NGC 4248. The latter galaxy appeared as a dim streak.

Hickson 81 in Hercules was pretty challenging. Using about 580×, I managed to easily resolve members "a" and "b" and a clump. The clump occasionally resolved into galaxies c & d. I was unable to isolate the faintest galaxy.

Also in Hercules, planetary nebula NGC 6058 showed a roundish halo with bipolar brightenings north and south of the bright central star, giving it a dumbbell appearance. The northern side appeared starker.

Planetary nebula NGC 6567 was rather frustrating to find -- it practically lies in the Sagittarius star cloud, M24! I star-hopped through M24 starting from the dark nebula Barnard 92, following one of the forks of its tail Barnard 304 (I mention these in the August 2026 cover article of Sky & Tel). I noticed a triple star superposed on it, one of which was orange/red. From there, I identified a bright star HD 167827  and another nearby double star. Eventually, I managed to find the location of the PN where I saw a barely non-stellar "suspicious looking star". Sure enough, it responded strongly to a nebula filter. It was barely nonstellar.

While looking for my next object, I stumbled upon beautiful reflection nebula NGC 6590 which sported a "dark notch"! Excited by the view, I called Howard over to take a look. What an amazing find. There were a few other nebulae nearby that I checked out -- NGC 6589 and IC 1284. The eventual goal of getting to this field was to find another barely non-stellar planetary nebula NGC 6578 which had a similar character to NGC 6567.

Field of nebulosity in Sagittarius, NGC 6590 at bottom left, NGC 6589 bottom right, IC 1284 is the red emission nebula. Photo by Adam Block culled from Wikipedia. The dark notch in NGC 6590 was my favorite part of the view!

I ended my third night on the Veil Nebula. Just a week before, I was at Henry Coe, showing it to a cohort of TACos. This view was different. I was battling brightening twilight, but still. Drastically different. What the skies showed at Coe was only a pale imitation of the real magnificence of the Veil Nebula and I just felt really sorry that I couldn't show this view to the people gathered last week. I just kept going "Wow!" again and again like I was seeing the object for the first time. The filamentous structure was just stupendous. As they say, the best light pollution filter is (many) tanks of gasoline for your vehicle. I was reaping the rewards of that 10 hour drive. No amount of aperture can make up for being under a dark sky, but here I was reeling from the combination of both large aperture and a dark sky!

I was starting to develop a love for the Fishbowl. Such a great observing site. The campground was filling up, but all their lights were blocked by the hill that separated the campground from the Fishbowl. The restrooms were clean, the lake was always around to wash off, the elevation, the darkness, it still did not feel remote because of the community of people gathered there and the two bars of LTE service. The only downside is that potable water is not available, and I had failed to carry my water filter -- otherwise the lake water could be filtered. Oh and the amateur astronomers in the sprinter van that parked across the two-track from us, they were from Washginton state and were just trying to get back into the hobby. Nick had a 8-inch telescope that he was not very happy with and is trying to give it a new home, but it was very clear he has a love for galaxies and the night sky.

The next day and night was supposed to be cloudy. Howard reported that the forecast looked dismal, and yes, every model except for RDPS was calling for clouds. I knew I'd get a night to sleep in, especially with morning work meetings I had to attend on Tuesday.

(To be continued)

Clear Skies,

Akarsh