OR:GSSP

[Dan Smiley]

I had a great time at this year’s GSSP. We had generally fine conditions and enjoyed much more moderate temperatures than last year. About a dozen members of the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers attended this year, planting our flag on the west side.

I observed each night, with Saturday especially dark and transparent. Friday which was the public night unfortunately started with clouds, but those who stuck around ended up getting clearing skies and good views of some eye candy. Alan Agrawal gave a fascinating talk about what went wrong with the Hubble Space Telescope - I think I’ll always remember “1.3mm” from now on (if you don’t know what I mean look up “Hubble 1.3mm washers”). Steve Gottlieb spoke about some of the deep sky objects beyond the Messiers such as the Abell planetaries, Palomar and Terzan globulars and tidal tail galaxies.

For my own observing I set personal records on both new and ancient light scales. On Wednesday June 25 I observed an 18 hour old super thin crescent Moon about a half hour after sunset. Using 10x42 binoculars on a tripod the Moon appeared as the thinnest curve, barely emerging from the reddish dusk. It displayed an arc of about 120 - 150 degrees. Steve Gottlieb confirmed the observation; for me it beat my previous youngest Moon of 22 hours (using optical aid).

A different kind of “new light” was Nova V462 Lupi which was easily seen in binoculars (but not naked eye for me). I estimated its magnitude as about 5.9-6.0.

I explored some new galaxies with my 12” f5 New Moon dob, including the NGC 5676 group in Boötes and NGC 5273 in CVn. My notes had NGC 6118 in Oph as “large, amorphous, interesting” while NGC 5921 3° NE of M5 was a “nice galaxy served on a bed of curving stars”.

Looking at my atlas I noticed I had hand drawn the position of IC 1101 although I didn’t remember why. I found the field and in the eyepiece managed a flickering elongated light near an arc of three stars. It popped in and out fairly regularly using averted, at least 5 or 6 times. I made a sketch and the next day made a positive id. Looking at its distance on Sky Safari, I was stunned to see it was 1.1 billion light years! It’s also one of the most massive galaxies known. Then I remembered I had read about this galaxy from Jimi Lowrey’s Sky & Telescope article “the Distant Dozen” (December 2023). I had put it in my atlas for future reference as he had written it was visible from a dark sky in a 10-12” scope. So I’m in the billion light year club now.

But that wasn’t the most ancient light I experienced at GSSP. Later in the week Steve shared a view of QSO B1603 3820. At the peak of a triangle with two stars, like the roof a house, this quasar has a redshift of z=2.551 which works out to a light travel time of 11.1 billion years! 

Akarsh Simha made a list for this year which I worked on a bit. NGC 6791 in Lyra is one of the oldest open clusters at 8-10 billion years old. It had a hazy appearance almost like a faint globular, an irregular shape, with a few stars resolved. It reminded me a little of a faint version of M71. Being so old I wonder why it hasn’t dissipated more. Hubble X an h alpha region in Barnard’s galaxy was gettable in my scope. But young stellar object Parsamian 21 despite a prolonged search did not show. After seeing it in Akarsh’s 28” I can see why, this thing is small!. I also tried for CTB 1 using my night vision device. I thought I might have a chance as I’ve seen strands of other dim supernova remnants using nv like Simeis 147. Scanning the area, Sh 2-170 was a convenient landmark, easily visible as a remarkably round puffball with a row of stars through the middle. But a lengthy search for any hint of CTB 1 came up empty.

Daytime activities included research into the fresh strawberry milkshakes at Oney’s Frosty and the Old Mill Grill (both good but the nod goes to Oney’s). And there was some birding nearby. This fellow is reputed to be an excellent night time observer, hanging out right off highway 299 between Adin and Bieber at the Ash Creek wildlife area:

Thanks go to Rich Ozer and the organizing committee members, the Albaugh family, and my fellow observers and attendees for making this another great GSSP.

[Dan Durkin]

Thank you for the writeup, Dan! It was fun to have the SFAA tribe under our banner and mostly at our basecamp.

While some pushed deep, I went near. Inspired by the July 2025 Sky & Telescope article "The Moving Star of Frank Ross", with my TEC 140 refractor, I first tracked down Barnard's star, the red dwarf that is only 5.96 light years away. Then I hunted down Ross 154, now the ninth nearest stellar system known at 9.7 light years. It is magnitude 10.4 and according to the article it is perhaps so young that it has not yet achieved nuclear fusion.

I spent much of my observing time in Sagittarius and as for relative faint fuzzies, tracked down Palomar 8, a 11.02 globular. It was indeed faint in my 140 mm of aperture.

I already posted about the bewildering sight and sound of the meteor I saw and heard! There was only one fellow astronomer nearby when it hummed overhead and he was engrossed in his observations. That was special.

Another highlight was an impromptu Sun party Saturday morning. The SFAA has an active group of solar observers and imagers, and we brought the filters. The Sun was especially active that morning with filaments across the disk and proms all around. One prom especially looked like a tree growing from the limb, rising  ~ 5 earths above.

We also enjoyed some wonderful bird watching at Ash Creek and Modoc Refuge. Neat spottings included the Sandhill Cranes that we would also briefly hear as the Sun set, Great Horned Owls, White Faced Ibises, Virginia Rail, and newly hatched Coots. 

It was a wonderfully pleasant GSSP. Thank you organizers!

[Peter Santangeli]

On the subject of the sun, this was my best solar image through my PST...

Definitely some fun stuff going on.

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[Dan Durkin]

Thank you for sharing, Peter. That's the "tree prom" at 10 o'clock. I believe that it lifted off the next day.

[Dan Durkin]

These two images of GSSP's fantastic Saturday Sun were captured by SFAA's Scott Posey with his Lunt 60 double stack. It was an active day! The zoomed-in image highlights "The Tree" prom that we were especially enjoying.

[Philippe Fossier]

Excellent image. 

~ philippe

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[Richard Ozer]

Fantastic!

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[Ted Hauter]

Half of GSSP is Before it's Dark.

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[Akarsh Simha]

On Sun, Jul 6, 2025 at 10:33 Ted Hauter <thgo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Half of GSSP is Before it's Dark.

That’s just a slogan. In reality, Ozer comes around every tent and makes sure there is no groups of more than 3 for safety reasons

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[Richard Ozer]

lol. I’m really just checking for loose eyepieces.

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[Ted Hauter]

Got these two with the phones ;)

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