OR: Coe 4/14/26 - The Dew.

[Mark Wagner]

Coe was forecast to be clear, and it was.  Also forecast was below average seeing, and it was quite the opposite.  Chilly was expected, and it certainly was with multiple layers to keep comfortable. Finally, it was expected to remain dry until after midnight - but it wasn't.

Shortly after setting up I began feeling a bit of telltale moisture on the eyepiece case and table top.  By 22:30 it was pretty well over, and packing up it was clear how heavy the dew was, totally fogging finders, rivulets running down the shrouds of the truss Dobs and onto (at least my) primary.  I hadn't seen this degree of moisture since the Pacheco Park Messier Marathon in the late 90's, where everyone took a bath.  Conjecture was the recent rains were still creating a low layer at the ground and anything pointed skyward sucked it up.

Still, there were some positives.  I got to sleep in my own bed. That was good!  And there were some nice views while it lasted.

I was accompanied by Richard Navarrete with an 18" Obsession (identical to mine) and Mitchel Koerner with a 10" (I'm guessing an Orion).  Right away in the dimming twilight we were on Jupiter, incredibly steady and detailed with little Io approaching the trailing limb.  We'd check back later (Mitchell pulled us away from deep sky to return) when a gorgeous shadow transit took place.  When we did, the shadow at 172x was a crisp, dense black dot/spot in the white on the equatorial side of the SEB, directly opposite a truly spectacular GRS across the SEB on the polar side, separated from the belt by a thin white eyelash.  Beautiful!

So, that view itself made the trip up worth going.  I'll also note we again split Sirius (no problem) and easily got six stars in M42's Trapezium.  Yeah, early on the dew didn't seem to be much.

I spent the rest of the short night cruising through a handful of late spring favorites from Adventures In Deep Space.

My two favorites, and I didn't get far into the list before the conditions stopped us, were easily the Ring-tail galaxy (Arp 244) in Corvus, and NGC 4088 (Arp 18) in Ursa Major.

Arp 244 looked everything like the photo,  the comma shape very obvious with a hard outer curved edge, and the tail looking rather ragged or split arcing around.  The dark intrusions showed well too between the two distinct sections.  My notes describe a sharply defined western section showing as a tadpole, arcing north then east, possible split in tail extending to dim star.  Leading bright star separated with dim on on leading edge.

The above object was very close to Arp 22, my first target of the night. which was surprisingly dim and difficult, occasionally looked to have a bright off center core.

Arp 18 was surprising that it was large and "bright" (relatively), thick and mottled.  Its photo is very interesting to review the next morning, allowing me to understand much of what I was viewing.  The "in the moment" view was interesting and a bit puzzling, as things in the object seemed so chaotic.  Here is what I wrote contemporaneously at 172X: Large and oriented sw/ne, mottled looks almost bifurcated with large disrupted core, possible split in ne extension. Brighter area in core to S with dark intrusion above to N. Much smaller elongated galaxy approx 25' to south and hint/feel of one or two more amorphously in between.  At 294X it becomes very ghostly, very mottled with a core that glows dimly like an HII region.

At this point, aimed up toward the Big Bear, views in the finder started looking very dim.  I was having difficulty star hopping from Cor Caroli to Chara and off to NGC 4151.  That's when things quickly came to an end.  I could have used the "hair drier" but I'm not a fan of having to do that over and over.

Half an hour later, I'd thrown everything haphazardly into the car, wet, to wait for the morning to empty and dry.  Just enough room for a driver, defroster clearing the window - for a quick drive home.

Bed was great - nice to be < an hour from home!

It was actually a good night, albeit short.  I was thinking about Thursday too, but skeptical.  It must be 20 years since I've been dewed out!  I think conditions may be quite similar tomorrow.

Mark

[Richard Navarrete]

Despite the dew and cold, it was a fun night of observing. The views of Jupiter were worth the trip by itself. Thanks for the OR!

Richard

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