OR: Mag 15 madness from Montebello

[Akarsh Simha]

After Akshay and Komal had mentioned their interest in making it to MB for an observing/imaging run, I decided I might as well join in with my "grab and go" (I kid) 18-inch telescope. For once, I was there before the ranger closed the gate and I showed him my permit. I still haven't figured out how to mark documents to be kept in local storage on iOS files app with iCloud sync, thankfully I have LTE at Montebello.

The first thing I set up was a camera taking a time-lapse, because why not? Not many videos / images out there to illustrate what visual observers do and the addictive joy of the hobby. I then worked on setting up my telescope.

The evening twilight sky was weird and I could see bands of smoke clouds as well as smell the smoke when I got there. The sky conditions were variable to terrible all night. As night fell, the first thing we tried to find was the comet. It was so faint that I called out what I thought was the comet in my 18-inch and it turned out to be some open cluster. Akshay finally saw the actual comet with the naked eye. It was dim, barely visible to a trained averted vision. I maybe got hints of a tail with the naked eye. Surely, it would be more visible from a place darker than Montebello.

The comet was interesting in my 18-inch, but no sign of an anti-tail with the bright background. Instead I saw a clear coma which was not seen as nicely in 25×100 binoculars. A few other folks (I didn't get their names) who had set up imaging rigs walked by to look through the 18-inch. A big dob is a crowd puller. We had some people without permits park outside and walk into the parking lot – they seemed like a group of college students. They were there for the comet, and as an amateur astronomer, not a ranger, I gladly showed them the comet and Saturn through the telescope. Komal arrived with his uncle and his fine 12" StarMaster and did his own observing.

Saturn was interesting through my 18", sporting only a thin ring with a thin shadow. The equatorial platform that Randy Pufahl helped fix at GSSP 2023 still works fine. The secret to a perfect drivetrain, we learned, is hot glue. That made for a stable view of Saturn, as well as the Ring Nebula at 350×. I didn't exactly see the central star. We also looked at the Crescent Nebula, which was a tough target for the light-polluted background, and compared views using OIII and H-Beta filters.

I had my college friends and their kids show up for some views as well, and I showed them Ring Nebula, the comet, Saturn, Andromeda Galaxy (and M 32), Dumbbell Nebula, Double Cluster, and Jupiter. At about 11 PM most people left except for Akshay and me. While Akshay's imaging rig was working, we pulled up NGC 7331 and the fleas. We picked out 3 of the 4 fleas. Then we moved on to Stephan's Quintet where we saw 4 galaxies (different ones) each out of the 5. Our eyes itching for something bright, next came NGC 7662, the Blue Snowball. It was a fantastic view at high power – seeing an inner ring-like structure and a structured outer halo; we got hints of the central star but I couldn't really see it.

Incidentally, after my laptop failed early this month, I have been free-loading on a borrowed laptop. I didn't want to expose said laptop to the elements, nor did I have a correctly sized red-filter. So all of this was manual old-fashioned star hopping with the Interstellarum Deep-Sky Atlas (IDSA). NGC 7662 took me a while to find. The next target we picked was Perseus Cluster. The IDSA has detail maps for Perseus Cluster and the NGC 7331 / Stephan's Quintet area which we used. Akshay and I studied the Perseus Cluster for perhaps an hour and a half. The platform ran out of tracking but we were having way too much fun, so we simply manual-tracked at 350x until we finally lost the cluster 5 minutes before moonrise. Every time I took a break from the eyepiece and looked up at the sky, I reminded myself that it was absurd that we were able to dig so deep into the Perseus Cluster – galaxies about 250 million light years away – from those conditions! We used IDSA's detail chart to map out nine galaxies (all in the NGC: 1275, 1272, 1273, 1278, 1277, 1281, 1270, 1267, 1268), and happened to pick up 3 additional galaxies not marked in IDSA while studying the field (NGC 1274, PGC 12430, PGC 12405). Of these, PGC 12430 seems to have the least total flux, so I looked up it's magnitude. A B magnitude of 15.50. The members of the Perseus Cluster are pretty red, though, so I estimate the V magnitude somewhere between 14.7 and 15.3 – which inspires the title of this OR. This is the deepest study of the Perseus Cluster I've done, my previous observations only logged 4–5 galaxies. I did not take detailed notes on the galaxies, though, simply checked them off.

Angling for 250 million year old photons from subpar skies

We finished on Orion Nebula, which showed a red tinge at the edges to my eyes (first time I've noticed this), and then looked at Mars briefly through the boiling atmosphere.

A lot of general astronomy discussion ensued as we packed up and even after. Finally, we left the field at about 3:!5 AM. An excellent night for 30 minutes of driving each way. Thanks to everyone who showed up for making the night a memorable one.

Regards

Akarsh

[Paul Alsing]

Here you go, Akarsh...

Abell 426 Observing Project

... knock yourself out! Albert was the King of observing projects...

*** Albert's Web Page - Home ***

\Paul Alsing

[Mark Wagner]

Akarsh.... "we left the field at about 3:!5 AM".  I agree "!".

What was the SQM?  Were any cluster members direct vision?

I think if anyone tries to repeat your feat at that location...  well "I pity the foo"... its  definitely  an A-Team observation ;-)

On Saturday, October 26, 2024 at 1:21:20 PM UTC-7 akars...@gmail.com wrote:

[Aris Pope]

I usually take a screenshot and print the permit 

Aris

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[Akarsh Simha]

Hi Paul

I am aware that Albert Highe did very deep dives into galaxy clusters, but I need to go through his theory content at some point.

And Mark your eye must be honed by all those years of averted vision to spot that typo, I noticed it too. And no, anyone would be able to hit 15-th mag from Montebello. The trick is to appeal to a higher power :-)

Regards

Akarsh

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[Akarsh Simha]

BTW, here is the timelapse from that night, on my YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3kWux9aZK8g

Regards

Akarsh