NexStar 50 Marathon
Introduction
I heard about the NexStar 50 Club years ago when I first found Mike Swanson’s excellent NexStar site and them promptly forgot about it. About a week ago he annouced 2 new members and I had the germ of an idea. I’ve always like the Messier Marathon idea, and if the skies are ever clear in New England in March I’ll certainly do one, but why not do a NexStar 50 marathon?
I’m at the Winter Star Party in the Florida Keys. I’ll be here for 6 observing nights and although there is lots to see down here, I’m not really here for the “southern” objects, I’m just here to see things, and meet people.
So why not do a NexStar 50 marathon?
I’ll tell you about the equipment first. The NexStar part is the ASGT GEM mount, full Goto. This has been tuned by Trapezium Telescopes and Services and is the prototype for the “muffler” product which quiets the noisy ASGT. I have a Burgess 5″ achromat refractor, f8. I used a Burgess 30mm Paragon, 9mm Planetary, 6mm Planetary II, and a Siebert 22.5mm. The diagonal is one of the new Burgess CED1 diagonals (not the CED2), the focuser is a Moonlight. Caffiene was supplied by Diet Coke.
I arrived an hour late due to traffic in the keys and the tent took forever to setup. I wasn’t really about to sit and take a breath until about 5:30pm. At that point, I decided to actually go for the list tonight. This was probably a good idea since it didn’t give me a chance to over analyze the list order. I didn’t have time. I had a quick bite to eat and started getting for sunset.
I turned the GEM as far low as it would go and just hoped. I lowered the north leg of the tripod a bit to help out with getting the 24.5 degrees I needed.
The Marathon
Here’s the list, mostly in the order I observed them. The intial order is probably wrong, I’ll let you know when I get the order correct. All the observing was done on Feb 21-22, 2009.
I started off by doing a planetary alignment, have the scope goto Venus, and then physically lifting and turning the scope until Venus was underneath the center ring of the Telrad. (I’ve done this trick before when I couldn’t find Polaris.) I then made Sirus my 2nd alignment star and Rigel was my calibration star.
NGC 7510 – 30mm, failed. All observations are with the 30mm until noted below.
47 Tucane – Did not attempt, too low. Way too low!
M31 – first object of the evening. Just a smudge on a not fully dark sky. Made it my 2nd calibration “star.”
Owl Cluster, NGC 457 – Actually looked cute, with the 2 eyes!
Double Cluster NGC 869, NGC 884 – Very easy grab.
NGC 7510 – Got it, very faint but clearly there.
NGC 891 - I could only see this galaxy if the scope was in motion, either slewing or tapping on the tube. The sky wasn’t fully dark.
Blue Snowball Planetary Nebula NGC 7662 – This one took a very long time. I confirmed I had the correct location by looking through a neighbor’s 11″ CPC, where it was bright, but I only got it before it disapeared into the trees. Faint for me.
I knew some of the Auriga opens were on the list or an the alternate list so I grabbed all three. The sunset time pressure was off so I headed back to my tent to grab my notebook! So now the order is correct.
M36 – 12 stars or a field of unresolved stars.
M37 – Impressive! Hundreds of resolved stars, not a grey background, but a grainy background. M37 was near zenith. I have never seen it this good before.
M38 – Several “lanes” visible. At zenith. Neabry NGC also easily seen as a smudge in the 30mm, still only a smudge with the 22.5. Higher powers not attempted because of stupid brain fade.
Pleiades, M45 – Easily naked eye visible but for some reason I had trouble counting naked eye stars. Hard to see all the granduer with the 30mm, I consider these to be a binocular object. But I could see a nice looking triangle of 3 dim stars right in center that I don’t recall seeing before.
M42 – Nice curdleing visible, only 4 stars in the Trapezium. M43 quite apparent.
Trapezium – switch to the 9mm for centering then the 6mm for observing. Only saw 4 stars. I was a little dissapointed, I’ve seen 5 before with this scope and had seen 6 early on another trip back to the tent in a neighbors 25″ Obsession! (M42 in the 25″ is impressive!) When I was looking the wind was gusty making the view shake quite a lot.
Betelgeuse – 9mm, Clearly red-orange color with minimal fringing.
M46 – This, along with M47, is one of my favorite binocular targets. I love seeing them, contrasting them, side by side. I’ve been able to see the planetary in M46 before but I didn’t look for it now. Too many stars to count on a grey background.
M44 – Disappointing, this is really a binocular object, or at least a wide field telescope object. Very dark background.
M81/M82 – I’ve always loved seeing these together. They are the first galaxies I ever saw and I still imagine alien astronomers looking back at me! When I switch to the 9mm I was able to the central division in the Cigar galaxy (M82). I had never seen that before.
Milky Way – This is on the list and I’m not sure how to observe with a telescope, but I needed to check it off. I pointed the part of the Milky way nearest to Sirius. As expected, it was full of stars.
M65, M66 and the NGC – Like M81/M82, I am able to get all three of these in the same FOV with the 30mm. The NGC is dim. (I barely have internet here so I can’t look up the number for you, google “Leo Triplet.” I didn’t open my star charts but the M object nearer the NGC seemed to have some structure, but I couldn’t make out what it was.
Saturn – 6mm. Rings are almost edge one. 2 moons observed along with the shadown of the ring. I was able to see 1 band.
M100 – 30mm, very hard to pickup but didn’t need averted vision. No central core seen.
24 COM – Double easily split with the 30mm, the blue one looked “smaller” than the yellow one.
Star Gate Asterism – I didn’t know there was an asterism list! What fun. Cute. I drew a little diagram in the notebook. There was a double in the middle, a triangle made up of a dim one and a brighter yellow and blue star. I used both the 30mm and 9mm.
I finally checked the time. It was 11:40pm.
NGC 4565 – Dim, but more was shown with averted vision. Hint of lines on edge. 30mm
M51 – Both parts seen easily. 30mm. Central core of both seen with averted vision. No connector seen. Tried the 22.5 but still no connector but the central cores were visible with direct vision with the 22.5.
Disaster! I was slewing to M3 and it had the classic run away slew problem. I went to switch to the new battery and figured I might as well get a good polar alignment. Polaris was behind the radio tower! No problem, I really don’t care, but the polor axis was directly in line with a spar on the radio tower so I could not see it. I moved the entire scope setup about 20 feet west, fortunately there was a clear space on the berm.
M3 – Gorgeous with the 30mm, gorgeous with the 9mm. Hints of resolved stars, big even in the 30mm.
Now it was 1:30 and the next objects I wanted hadn’t yet risen. I headed back to the tent for a 90 minute nap.
3AM alarm goes off.
3:15 back at the scope, Omega Centauri. Wow! This is amazing. Impressive in the 30m, can see stars sprinkled throughout the globular. Big. Bright. The 9mm show that the blob is grainy, stars! Even more impressive. The 6mm dims it enough that it is hard to see the grain, the 9mm is better.
3:35AM
Jewel Box NGC 4755 – Failed. I had no idea if it was rising higher or setting lower at this time. I’ll try again. (That’s what I wrote in my paper log. I just checked now, it was highest at around 2:30AM. But I didn’t know that then.)
M13 / M92 – 30 mm. M13 is normally a very impressive object but after Omega Centaurii it was disappointing! Funny how things are relative. M92 is a weaker cousin. Great binocular objects, both are easy to find and bright. M13 is also naked eye at a dark site and it was naked eye tonight.
Table of Scorpius – 11 stars with 3 dim ones, 30mm. 21 stars showed with the 9mm. Quite distinctive with 30 mm. Black background.
M6, M7 – Starting to cloud up. Very low on the horizon, I should wait until they are higher but I’m concerned about time. I’m quite familiar with them. Easy grabs to get the checkmarks on the list. Plan on coming back later in the night.
3:56AM back to the Jewel Box. Needed to do a meridian flip. Does this mean it is setting now? Fail.
M5 – Quite nice in the 30mm. 9mm shows a sprinkling (20?) stars on the gray background. Much larger than M13.
M16 – Failed. Thin haze in that area, with some comepletely obscured spots. I can see what I think is the open cluster, but no nebulosity. I don’t know this open cluster from memory.
M8, M20 – Quick grabs for the numbers. Starting to worry about the clouds. Will I make it? I used M8 to replace Saturn as an alignment star. In my experience, the gotos are more accurate if the alignment stars are in the area of the sky where you are observing. I’m hoping that this makes M16 come out just in case the goto was off.
Back to M16 – Still thin clouds. Still see the suspected open cluster, still no nebulosity.
NGC 6633 – 37 stars seen with the 9mm. Used averted vision on about 5, they were hard to pick out. I’d say it is V shaped with one of the arms of V being a double arm. Made this calibration star #4.
M25 – Quick and obvious. 3 groups, total 25 stars with a loose rim of 10 stars surrounding them. 9mm. Very low, but cloudy so I grabbed it.
Getting cold but the tent is too far away and besides, the jacket is in the car and the dome ligts will go on and I don’t want that.
Double double – 9mm split once the scope stopped moving from the wind. One pair was very easy, one very hard.
M57 – Easy and gorgeous! No hint of central star but I didn’t look either. Can easily see the internal darkness. 9mm.
Albireo – Super EZ, lovely blue and yellow color. Old friend.
Coathanger – Cute! Never seen this one before. 30mm. 6 bright stars (1 double) in a line with a hook of 4 bright stars and 6 dimmer ones. Big!
M11 – Gorgeous. Milky with 3? stars resolvable with the 30mm. 9mm shows definate grain and many individual stars. 2 bright off to one side (30mm and 9mm). 9mm shows a darker section in the middle.
5:20!
M16 – was fail before, hint of nebulosity with the 30mm.
Time to move fast.
M17 - Flat base of swan visible. Neck also. 30mm
M22 – Easy grab, 30mm
M55 – Fail. Hasn’t risen yet.
M27 – Super easy 30mm. Can see lobes with averted vision.
Veil – Fail. Try the Lumicon UHC. Got it! Both halves. 30mm not even hard. I was very worried about this one. I needed to wait until it was high but it turns out that my east has Marathon’s light dome! I didn’t expect that. Very dim but a definate grab, I’ve seen it before.
Moon has risen suddenly. 5:33AM. I can see a band of thick clouds on the horizon, about 2 finger widths tall. The moon is gorgeous! Very thin, great earthshine. I can even make out a darker spot that is Tycho! I’ven never look at the earthshine with a telescope before.
M55 – Scope almost horizontal, very dim but large smudge.
5:41 – Don’t see Jupiter but I did a goto anyway. Scope is horizontal. I see… a blinking navigation beacon at sea! Jupiter must be on the horizon behind the clouds.
M15 – Blocked by the only palm tree on the berm!
5:48AM
M15 – Cleared the trees. Dim smudge!!! Sky getting light now. Marathon’s light dome is gone. Clounds or sunrise.
5:51 – Jupiter! No moons, just cleared clouds.
5:58 – 3 moon of Jupiter. 30mm. Mercury easy, shows disk, also both are naked eye.
6AM – Stars are going out. Moon, Mercury and Jupiter and clouds are beautiful.
6:02 – Mars. Grabbed it between a band of clouds, it comes and goes. Not naked eye.
6:06 – 4 moons now for Jupiter. Can’t take the 9mm, sky is boiling. Mars is clearly a disk.
6:11 – Sunrise color on the horizon above the clouds, clouds are 2 fingers high now.
6:22 – Still have Vega, Jupiter an Mercury, which is fading. Mars not naked eye.
6:29 – Vega gone, Mercury gone. Jupiter is difficult.
Time for bed.
Conclusion
I grabbed 50 of the 48 objects. The 2 that I failed on had alternates. There are 4 objecs on the alternate list and I grabbed 3 of them. 51 objects! Thanks for maintaining the list, it was a great bit of fun and I’m very glad I had the opportunity to do it marathon style.