OR: Deep in the heart of Texas

[Akarsh Simha]

Well, the stars weren’t exactly big and bright -- we didn't have spectacular conditions. But hey we got some 15-hours of solid observing in total.

The story starts with October new moon. I was all packed up to head out on a 4-night run when I had to change plans because of family and fly to India. All is well, but my support was needed. Needless to say, I was disappointed. I begrudgingly unloaded the 28-inch from the truck along with all my camping gear. I had a long observing list with many objects I was excited about trying, none of which I would get to. I had no telescope and it was cloudy in Bangalore. I made-do by giving a couple talks at one of the local astronomy clubs, and organizing a Zoom talk on sketching by Howard Banich for the other one.

Just before all of this, I’d spoken briefly to Jimi Lowrey about the possibility of observing on his 48-inch in November. I first looked through Jimi’s 48-inch in May 2014 and back then I lived in Austin, TX — “only 500 miles away", or equivalently an 8-hour drive on I-10. Thanks to Jimi and Connie's generosity, I therefore found myself fairly frequently at their place, and I put faces to several names I’d heard of in this hobby over the years. That’s where I met Steve Gottlieb for the first time, along with Alan Agrawal and Bob Douglas. I’d read Steve’s reports on Adventures in Deep Space for years, so I finally got to meet the source of my aperture fever. Later, perhaps in 2016, I met Howard there as well. Over the years, I found myself there along with Steve and Howard a bunch of times. The last must have been in 2022 — since then either Howard or I have been missing. Trying to gather back “the quartet”, I wrote about my intent to Steve and Howard. Missing the October new moon fomented my interest in spending the November new moon in Texas.

Howard was in! We timed our flights so we could share a rental car. Steve said he’d join if OzSky didn’t work out, as you read in his OR. I landed back in the states on Nov 16th, still recovering from a cold I acquired in India. The forecast looked absolutely dismal with only one clear night, but even if we didn’t do any observing we’d at least get to have fun hanging out. Steve was already at Jimi’s when Howard and I arrived in El Paso within 20 minutes of each other on Nov 19th. It was awesome to learn from Howard during our drive, talking about astronomy, writing, sketching, whatnot. Before driving out I introduced him to our favorite Tex-Mex in El Paso. Our first night at Jimi’s was toast, good for us because Howard and I were very tired and got some guilt-free sleep. The next night, Nov 20th was good. I was working during the day, and wrapped up in time to go up to the telescope. Here are some of my highlights:

I wanted to look at the NGC 7656 = VV 669 = Anthead Galaxy, both because of attempting it in my 28-inch in September and the CN thread on the subject. Steve had posted his tantalizing previous observation on that thread. Seeing portions of the ring in the 48-inch was a lot easier: the north-western segment was clearly seen, and the northeastern segment took some effort, completing the northern arm of the ring. I got occasional glimpses of the north-south running section on the eastern rim. I also got pretty strong sensations of the southwestern portion of the ring, but could never see the whole ring. I saw the galaxy PGC 860406 as a subtle brightening visible intermittently to averted vision. There was also a weak sensation of a bridge joining PGC 860406 and NGC 7656, even though images show the bridge being brighter to the north of PGC 860406. Why, I don't know. The conditions weren't good, and the scope was bouncing around in the breeze for a good part of the observation, yet the amount of faint detail ferreted out was impressive. The core superposed on the northwestern arm of the ring was almost continuously visible with direct vision.

North is at 4 o'clock

With NGC 55, Steve wanted to pick out a few HII regions. Of course, the galaxy itself was stunning and one could've spent a lot of time gazing at it. I followed Steve's cues to log four of the HII regions, marked as HK1, HK2 and DV7, DV6 on Scott Harrington's finder chart below, original photo by Mark Hanson:

HK 1 was tiny, distinctly non-stellar, continuously visible to averted vision. HK 2 was somewhat larger than HK 1 and a lot brighter. It appeared as a condensed knot, visible continuously to direct vision. DV 7 was brighter than DV 6, continuous to direct vision. DV 6 was fainter, continuous to averted vision.

M 76, which was put on the list by Howard, was reminiscent of a barred spiral galaxy with an overly thick bar. Two arms spiraled out of ends of the bar that were heavily knotted. If someone had shown it to me saying it was a barred spiral with lots of starburst, I would've gone "wow, that's a weird peculiar barred spiral" but accepted it. The view also reminded me of the not-little Dumbbell Nebula M 27 in my 28".

IC 10, the dim local group member in Cassiopeia, is a challenge for smaller telescopes. I've spotted it in my 25x100 binoculars under excellent conditions in Death Valley. Scott Harrington wrote a Sky & Tel article several years ago describing a few knots visible in the galaxy. I had success in ferreting out two of the knots with great difficulty. The 48-inch made it straightforward, and we were able to see all three knots.

NGC 972 is an interesting starburst galaxy imaged by the Hubble, where it shows it full of HII regions. The view in the 48-inch was more like this image: we were able to see the dust lane hugging the core from one side.

Steve has already mentioned PGC 1480586, a galaxy at an astounding (comoving) distance of 3.1 Gly with a light-travel time of about 2.8 billion years. It was surprisingly not difficult for something that distant. It appeared distinctly non-stellar visible to averted vision about 70--80% of the time once I locked it into a sweet spot.

There are objects that are invisible even in a 48-inch that we amateurs can dream of trying. We spent a good chunk of time trying to pick out a planetary nebula in the Fornax Dwarf system, but we did not succeed. Maybe it would yield under better conditions, and here's where the gambling addiction of deep-sky observing comes in!

NGC 1365, the Great Barred Spiral, must be the most fantastic barred spirals in the night sky. Of course, the sky conditions matter and we didn't have the darkest sky, likely due to airglow from the solar maximum period. Yet the galaxy's spiral arms stood stark. Steve mentioned the dark lane cutting across the core. I knew nothing about this, and exclaimed at the eyepiece when I noticed it. Wow! I made a sketch of the galaxy

During the day while lounging in Jimi's living room, I peeked through Howard's sketchbook and came across his sketch of the same view, on the same night, through the same telescope and was astounded by his prowess both at observing and at sketching what he saw. He'll probably share the sketch once it's ready, and it is in my books a masterpiece to draw inspiration from.

 

NGC 1614, again Steve has already written about this.

The curved tail going east was not as difficult. I did not know to expect the straight tail going south, but some detached brightening called out to me at the eyepiece. This was the brighter portion of the southern tail which was much more difficult. As Steve mentioned, there was a second stellar point west of the nucleus. It was superposed on a marked western rim that was brighter, and looked like a spiral arm brightened by starburst.

NGC 1999 made my night. I've seen it before in the 48-inch but this spectacular object is a treat every time. I wrote "this might just be the best thing I've seen tonight, holy smokes!" The edge of the void was mottled weakly and the brightness gradations in the reflection nebula were also picked up.

We capped the night with M 42. The last time I'd seen M42 through Jimi's 48-inch, it was low in the sky. This time, it was right on the meridian. The first thing I noticed is the amount of gradation in the dark nebulosity in the fish's mouth region. There were layers and layers of different shades. The region around the trapezium, where six stars were seen easily, was notably darker. Howard explained that this is an optical illusion. The edges of all the detail in the core were pink in color, especially the eastern edge of the Huygen's region had a distinct pink shade. There were also pink filaments strewn around the entire Huygens region, where the nbulk had a greenish-blue hue. The outer "wings" of the Orion Nebula were an eerie filamentous glow. M43 showed a circular brightening around the star in it, and sported a dark rift going across.

With that fantastic view, we ended a long winter night. It felt like it was freezing cold, but it was only in the low 40s. We have a ritual of adjourning from the observatory to the kitchen, for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or some other snack. That's also when we revel in the views of the night, look at images without the red filters on our laptops, and wind down from the excitement of the night. Later that night, despite running the heater, I woke up unable to sleep due to the cold. I had to wear some insulating layers before returning to sleep. It was cold in Texas.

Regards

Akarsh