OR: Two not-so-ideal nights at Route 66

[Akarsh Simha]

Circumstantial

Being a weekend warrior now, it is harder to get out than last year and I am therefore focused on weekends. Working from a dark site is not the problem, it's the driving. 3 hours is too much to burn on a weekday when it could be dedicated to work. Oh well.

Looking at the good Friday forecast, I nevertheless asked for some flexibility and decided to work on Saturday instead. I wasn't fully prepared: it took me until 2PM to leave south bay and I also made three stops hunting for distilled water. I assumed a place like Love's or CVS or O'Reilly's auto parts might carry it -- but I only found it at Foods Co. in Soledad. This, and a road closure put my arrival at about 5:50 PM, nearly 40 minutes after sunset. Several deer and a fox spotted on the way. I tried to set up as fast as I could and things were going well until for some reason I absolutely struggled to put on the secondary cage. Maybe it was my sore shoulders and abs from gym on Thursday. After that, I realized that once again my secondary mirror bolt had come loose. Ugh. This time, though, I was able to fix it fairly quickly because of my learnings from last time. Once I have it close, I should just use loctite. It still burned dark clear time. I started at about 7:40 PM, almost losing an hour and a half of dark. Frogs were croaking in response to each other nearby. A western screech owl was hooting. I also heard a few coyotes and perhaps a barn owl.

Somehow I was not impressed with what I was seeing through the eyepiece -- was it the sky or my dusty mirror? Probably both. The forecast looked absolutely great but I think in reality it fell short. It was also really cold! After a couple objects, in exasperation, I ended up rinsing the mirror right there -- I'd rather deal with the water droplets and the uneven temperature ruining the figure. I think it turned out to be a good bargain -- a lot of dirt did drain out, and the star image, starting out from the weirdest I had ever seen, settled down eventually. I had about four solid hours of observing before the moon rose around 00:10. By that time, there was frost on not just the black but also other surfaces like my mirror cover -- I was stupid to have left it mirror-side up and had to blast it with a heat gun before wiping it and putting it back on. The car thermometer read 36 F. And yes, I was fogging my eyepiece towards the end which added to some frustration. Bundled up in layers, I can handle the cold pretty well -- yet I had to break out the hand warmers for the eyepieces. The last hour before moonrise, the sky was doing really good as was my cleaned mirror -- damn moon.

Unsatisfied with the four hours for all that effort, I decided to stick around another night despite the toss-up forecast. During the day I finished up work, rinsed my mirror again and also gave it some gentle finger-cleaning. I didn't quite have the patience to go over the entire mirror and I didn't even have a towel to soak up the water. The NBM predicted crappy conditions all night, whereas the RDPS was a bit more optimistic. The night started out with a lot of band of clouds and I didn't even realize it was 6:30 PM because the sky was so bright from all the scattered light-pollution. I would say the sky was similar to Pinnacles West. Would I observe from Pinnacles West if I were there with my telescope set up? Yes. So I jumped around the sky chasing suckerholes of moderate transparency, although this was fruitful because the clouds were slow-moving so I could finish an observation before moving to the next suckerhole. By 8PM, the sky was totally covered up. The RDPS claimed it might get better at 10PM. I rested for a bit in the car and then started planning some projects -- I had brought some material to work on in case I got skunked. Shashi sent me a satellite image link that seemed to suggest the RDPS would be right. By 9:45PM, it started clearing. At 10 PM I was back in business and although the skies were very hazy, I observed until moonrise at 1:10AM. There was much less frost, and again I think the skies improved some in the hour before moonrise. I also dropped an H-Beta filter down the telescope tube -- I think it takes some creative stupidity to do something like that. I think it may have struck the mirror but at best made a minor scratch. I am increasingly more desirous of a filter slide, I'm told you can 3D print one.

The next morning I woke up a bit earlier, and was not sure whether to stay or leave. A CDFW law enforcement officer came to check-in on me if I was hunting, he was polite. Apparently, the Los Padres is now seeing a number of poachers and more gun shooting (afaik only hunting is allowed on forest land, not target shooting?), I could hear it every morning. As I was trying to make up my mind whether to stay or leave, the forecast being dicey, a gentleman came over in a truck. Apparently he and his buddy were going to camp at the same spot. I took this as my decision-making device and yielded the campsite to them. I learned some from the pleasant folk as they were conservation enthusiasts and had been camping in the area for decades, and exchanged contacts. It took me long to pack up because I messed up a few things and was also talking to the new friends. I got out after sunset. The drive back was uneventful.

Ironically, the forecast for the middle of the week is fantastic. I'm drawn to make an impulse trip one evening after work.

Objects

I'll only highlight a few good observations. Most of them were so-so because of the conditions.

1. The Little Sombrero Galaxy NGC 7814

The nickname is sometimes applied to NGC 681, but NGC 7814 is the more official "Little Sombrero". It appeared as a pretty large and reasonably bright galaxy. Even at low power, there were some hints of the dust lane. It took 300x to clearly show the dust lane to averted vision. The dust lane appeared "pinched" in the center of the galaxy.

2. G78 in M31

If you attended 2025 GSSP, you probably heard Steve Gottlieb talk about his "Off the Deep End" observing program. In that list of extragalactic globulars, the only one I hadn't yet seen was G78. When I brought it into the field, I was shocked by how easy it was. Granted I was using a lot of aperture. I estimated it to be between 13th and 14th mag based on the neighboring stars. It appeared stellar, and was visible to direct vision at high power (580x).

3. NGC 672 and IC 1727

An interacting system of a spiral galaxy and an irregular galaxy, both very interesting in appearance. It's part of Gottlieb's DeepMap 600 list, which is one of the best deep-sky lists made. Both galaxies showed interesting structure through my telescope, including the prominent star forming region in IC 1727 and a knot in NGC 672. PGC 1803573 nearby was extremely dim but definitely seen as a ghostly streak.

4. NGC 750 and 751

I'm sure this is going to be featured in an upcoming Sky & Telescope article by a fellow TACo, so I figured I'll see it before it's cool. Just kidding, it was on my list for a really long time and I was appalled that I hadn't gotten to this. There are few well-known examples of interacting pairs of elliptical galaxies. This is one of the two best ones I know of. As a bonus it does feature a tidal tail. I sort of vaguely knew this, but I was confident I wasn't going to see it. The two galaxies immersed in a shared visual halo made for a beautiful view. One galaxy (NGC 750) appeared brighter and had a strong stellar nucleus, whereas the other one was a bit smaller, dimmer and also had a weaker central condensation. I started suspecting a weird elongation from NGC 750 going northwest. What? I tried to see if there was any other orientation where I was seeing something like that, and this one kept calling out to me. I estimated it as about -30° position angle. I just logged it as "suspected" and "weak" and a "call out to be later confirmed against images". Yikes, looks like I did see the tail after all. I'm surprised, it seems unreal given how faint it looks on the images and virtually invisible in the DSS2 image I had on hand. There is something about tidal tails, just like IFN, being more visible than you expect from photographs. I'm still doubting myself.

5. NGC 1637

This was a very bizarre-looking galaxy in the eyepiece, just as it is bizarre-looking in images. It was really difficult to describe or sketch it's odd appearance.

6. NGC 1819

This seems to be a barred spiral where the disk and arms are so faint that you only see the bar, and it sort of looks like Hero's Engine to me. Anyway, it sorta looked like a polar ring galaxy in the eyepiece, with two filaments shooting out of the core.

7. NGC 2207 / IC 2163

I somehow had higher hopes for this interacting pair. I kinda remember looking at it with a 25" back in 2010 and being impressed. I have gotten harder to impress, the skies were less good and my eyes have aged. Yet, I saw all the major features: the spiral structure of NGC 2207 and the tidal arm of the "ocular" galaxy IC 2163.

8. Red Rectangle

This is one that I did not expect to bag. The last time I tried the red rectangle, I failed. This time, all stars had halos as usual (yes) but this one appeared different. I was able to call out the direction of the rectangular halo, which made me confident in this observation. It was most distinct at about 300x.

9. NGC 1999

I ended my first night on a tour of bright objects. Obviously orion nebula was mesmerizing, but I also slewed to NGC 1999. Wow! The void had a three-pronged appearance and it was very structured. As it drifted across my field, I remembered that as a teenager, I had the Hubble image of NGC 1999 as a desktop background or screensaver or something. How I longed to see it... And now, I was! I had no idea that I'd be enjoying that view, drifting across my eyepiece, with my own eyes one day. When I was frustrated after all that toil setting up and tearing down the telescope, I remembered this moment again -- I think being able to look at the night sky with a large telescope fulfills a longing I always had.

10. NGC 7778, NGC 7790

Night two was so bad at the start, I looked at open clusters! This pair of open clusters were nicely framed in a 21mm Ethos.

11. Arp 332

I've been working on a galaxy chain project and this was one prominent chain I hadn't seen yet. Soon as the skies cleared at 10PM on Jan 10th, I looked at it. It was damn faint. I couldn't believe that all the galaxies were either NGC or IC galaxies. I was looking through an airmass of 3 on a very hazy night. Duh. Yet, I was able to spot the 4 NGC/IC galaxies and had a weak observation of one of the other galaxies.

12. NGC 1385

Steve Gottlieb recently featured this as DeepSkyForum Object of the Week, which reminded me to go look at this beautiful galaxy. The airmass of 2.8 on a hazy night degraded the view I'm sure, but yet I was able to ferret a bit of spiral structure and a knot complex.

13. NGC 1600

I stumbled upon this galaxy in Eridanus while searching for NGC 1594 and a star that seemed oddly out-of-focus caught my eye. I went to my laptop to find that the "star" was a galaxy and this was actually a nice compact triplet of galaxies! A nice serendipitous view, I went back and managed to see the third one and made a sketch of the trio -- NC 1600, NGC 1601, NGC 1603.

14. NGC 2217

It's always fun to see galaxies in "unusual" constellations like Taurus or Orion or Canis Major. This is one of the bright galaxies in Canis Major that I hadn't seen. Of course, it looks beautiful in images -- an unusual barred spiral with a ring around it. I would be content tonight with just seeing the bar, but oh no, the ring kept calling to me in the eyepiece! Yes, I did see the brighter parts of the ring, only on the northern side though. So the galaxy sort-of looked like the outline of a half-moon plus the core.

15. Ced 74 and GN 06.16.4

I was looking over the Sky & Telescope December 2025 issue, where Al Lamperti wrote about "Chasing Winter IC Objects". I'd seen most of them, but IC 444 caught my eye. I hadn't seen it. Turns out that IC 444 is an ambiguous designation (I wrote to S&T about it), but Al was referring to a nebula cataloged in SIMBAD as GN 06.16.4. (I need to write to Scott Harrington or Victor van Wulfen about this, they are my go-to nebula experts.) There's also a nice nebulosity designated Ced 74 nearby.

GN 06.16.4 was largely lost in the scattering from poor transparency and unclean optics, yet its asymmetric nature revealed its existence. Ced 74 was a lot easier since there was no bright star -- it appeared as a faint fan-out from a very dim star.

16. NGC 2613

Speaking of galaxies in unusual places, there are few bright / well-known deep-sky objects in the constellation of Pyxis. One is the planetary nebula / open cluster duo ambiguously known as NGC 2818. Then there's a galaxy NGC 2613 which happens to feature in the Herschel 400. I was pretty impressed as I brought the beautiful edge-on into view. It filled about half of my 14' FOV in length, was bright and showed some mottling.

17. NGC 2610

This planetary nebula in Hydra was my last object of the run. It sported a brighter, heavily mottled rim to a slightly oval disk and a central star that appeared intermittently to averted vision.

I'm itching to go out again looking at the spectacular forecast.

Clear Skies

Akarsh

[Jamie Dillon, DDK]

Found an enthusiastic note on ngc 672, "Where have you been all my life? Beautiful long ropy spiral. Fairly bright central spine, several long strands lengthwise, esp on along north side." Was also tickled at the position angle. Measured it at ca 70°, it's listed as 65.

This was on an August night at the Peak in '07. Did catch ic 1727 but didn't know they're interacting.

For anyone who doesn't have a copy, no kidding Gottlieb's DeepMap 600 is highly useful, the chart and especially the list. Everything on it is eye candy in a medium-sized scope.

Thanks for the vicarious thrills, Akarsh, frost and all.

[Akarsh Simha]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 18:37 Jamie Dillon, DDK <ngc1...@gmail.com> wrote:

Found an enthusiastic note on ngc 672, "Where have you been all my life? Beautiful long ropy spiral. Fairly bright central spine, several long strands lengthwise, esp on along north side." Was also tickled at the position angle. Measured it at ca 70°, it's listed as 65.

This was on an August night at the Peak in '07. Did catch ic 1727 but didn't know they're interacting.

I wrote down in the pre-observing notes when I added NGC672 to my observing list for January, “Can’t believe I haven’t seen this yet!” So I echo your sentiment Jamie, thanks for sharing! The claim that they are interacting, I stole from Wikipedia. I haven’t dug out the citations and confirmed against the scientific literature.

For anyone who doesn't have a copy, no kidding Gottlieb's DeepMap 600 is highly useful, the chart and especially the list. Everything on it is eye candy in a medium-sized scope.

Thanks for the vicarious thrills, Akarsh, frost and all.

I really wish someone would reprint something like the DeepMap. Even if your workflow doesn’t use the map, the list is awesome and it’s both on Ray Cash’s website and on Adventures

You’re welcome Jamie!

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[Ted Hauter]

It is unfortunate Deep Map might have went the way of Orion Trlescopes. When that happened, I bought a fresh copy to have.

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[Steve Gottlieb]

My last observation of NGC 672 was in 2013 at Lake Sonoma using my 24” at 225x. Not sure why I was using such a relatively low power, though.

“Very bright, very large, elongated 5:2 WSW-ENE, mottled appearance. Contains a brighter, elongated "bar" that is slightly angled (roughly 7:2 E-W) to the major axis of the halo. Slightly brighter "patches" were visible just beyond the bar (on both the east and west side), probably where spiral arms attach to the bar.”

But I must have liked this galaxy early on as I made at least 3 observations that are over 42 years old!

As far as the interacting question, see https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AstL...40...11T/abstract

Steve

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[Akarsh Simha]

But I must have liked this galaxy early on as I made at least 3 observations that are over 42 years old!

Kinda crazy you've been observing longer than I (and a few other TACos) have been alive and are still going out this new moon! Reassures me that I probably won't burn out.

 

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