Brief OR: Lake Sonoma Friday night (11/29/24)

[Steve Gottlieb]

Last night I had good conditions at Lake Sonoma, although my SQM readings never hit above 21.22 (typical reading there in the last year or two).  Clouds were evident very low in the south at sunset, but they didn't drift north or interfere at all with observing.  Otherwise, it was basically dry (no dew), completely calm, and pretty steady seeing.  The temps were in the 40s (once I hit Dry Creek road on the way back, they dipped into the 30s), but I wasn't cold as there was no moisture or breeze.

I was the only visual observer, but shared the large lot with two imagers from Santa Rosa (one in the upper and one in the lower lot where I set up) and they were amazed when I showed them a few common imaging targets such as the Heart (IC 1805) and Soul Nebula (IC 1848) in Cas using my night-vision set-up with a 6nm H-alpha filter.

Without the image-intensified device, I logged nearly 30 UGC galaxies in the mag 14 to 15 range using 226x over a 5-hour stretch.  This was using my 14.5” f/4.3 Starmaster.  Once I enter my notes, I may post a full report, but here’s one example — the Magellanic irregular UGC 12747 in Pegasus.  Check out the loop of blue H II knots on this SDSS image.  I wonder if this is a merger?

Steve