OR 05 13 2026
Richard Navarrete
Tales from a familiar place
I’ve been observing mainly from Henry Coe State Park for the past two years. Wednesday, May 13, I was able to go observing on some private property near Pinnacles National Park. This is in an area where I had been a regular observer at Kevin Ritchel’s ranch which sported Bortle 3 skies. Along for the adventure was Mark W. and Muriel D., both with 18” Classic Obsession telescopes. I brought along a 4” apo refractor and a 10” Orion Dob in my continuing quest to observe the objects presented in Sue French’s book ‘Celestial Sampler - 60 Small Scope Tours for Starlit Nights.’ Although I finished most of three essays, the main target for the night was Markarian’s Chain. Sue French’s observations were mainly done with a 4” TeleVue Traveler, but she used a 10” dob for this essay, so I used my 10” dob as well.
After setting up camp I crawled into the tent for an hour to rest and relax in preparation for the observing to come. When I got up I fired up the backpacking stove and made a meal of Ramen and garlic chicken chunks. Yummy! I boiled water for a thermos of herbal tea and I was ready for the night.
As the sun set, I enjoyed the rich orange and red colors mixed with the creeping shadows on the low hills in the distance across the meadow that was filled with ground squirrels and little rabbits. Jupiter soon appeared and the observing was on. The view of Jupiter wasn’t as detailed as the previous week at Coe, but still worth a visit.
It became obvious rather quickly that this site was going to be much darker than Coe. Stars were visible above the hilltops to the west, where at Coe we only get a view of the brightest stars and the skyglow from the cities below.
I decided to start with “Grabbing the Bear by the Tail.” This essay featured three doubles and two galaxies in Ursa Major and Bootes. Mizar, one of the most well known doubles in the northern sky, is situated in the handle of the Big Dipper. Mizar is also the first double star discovered with a telescope. Mizar is joined by Alcor and makes a pretty trio with a third star partnered with Mizar. Kappa Bootes are a mag 4.5 and 6.6 couple and looked white and yellow to me. Iota Boots was an easy split at 35x. The looked Yellow and blue to my eyes.
M101 isn’t very far from Mizar, and I recall spending a lot of time observing this galaxy from Lassen National park with my 18” Obsession. Tonight, in the refractor at 44x I observed a large, roundish glow with a brighter core. I detected just a hint of spiral arms. In the 10” at 109x there was an obvious large, oblong glow with spiral arms, a stellar core and a brighter center. At the 7:00 position in my eyepiece I could detect some HII regions. Beautiful!
M102, a 9.9 galaxy, is the replacement for the mistaken re-observation of M101 as a new member in Messiers list. At 133x in the 10” I saw an elongated galaxy with a brighter core surrounded by a dimmer halo. Two dim stars flank the western end.
On to Markarian’s Chain, named for Benjamin E. Markarian due to a paper he wrote about the group in 1961. Eight galaxies share the same movement in space, but there are other galaxies to observe in the area. Fourteen galaxies were included in the essay, ranging from magnitude M86’s 8.9 to NGC 4479’s 12.4.
Image by Joe Renzetti
In the eyepiece of the 10” I didn’t see a lot of specific details to share. It was the usual stellar core, brighter center, fainter edges. Many of them appeared elongated.
One feature Sue mentioned was the face formed on the right side of the image by M84 and M86 representing eyes, little NGC 4387 as a nose, and NGC 4388 as a mouth. NGC 4402 is an eyebrow above M86. To the left of this group is a pair of very close (in the image) galaxies that are actually called ‘ The Eyes.’
Going through this group took me a fair amount of time, so I took a trail mix break and sipped some of the tea I brewed earlier. I took the opportunity to sit for a bit and just enjoy the starry sky. Scorpio was up, although its tail never went above the low hills in the south. Vega was also up, which heralds the coming of the summer sky and the milky way.
I had two doubles left to complete “Dazzling Doubles,” so I maneuvered the refractor to Struve 1985 in Serpens. At 79x I observed a yellow and blue pair. Struve 2031 was a wide double with a yellow primary and a very dim secondary. Another essay finished.
“Spectral Hues of Double Stars” is a list of nine colorful double stars in Bootes and Corona Bootes. I managed seven of them before calling it a night. These two constellations were right overhead and my neck had had enough for one night.
Struve 1835 - Yellow and blue
Pi Bootes - Close split, white and blue
Xi Bootes- split at 79x, cream and yellow
Struve 1825 - Close split at 79x, yellow and blue
Epsilon Bootes - tough split at 143x. Epsilon is very bright, it’s secondary very dim.
Mu Bootes - wide pair, yellow and blue in the 10”. I couldn’t manage pointing the refractor on its alt-az mount straight up.
It was 1:30 by this time and Mark and Muriel had already called it a night. I put a few pieces of gear away to keep them out of the dew that had been forming for most of the night.
Mark Wagner
Richard Navarrete
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