Object Name: Independence Mountain Sunset and Crescent Moon

Observation Info

Imaging Info

- Date/Time: 2011-09-03

- Camera: 

- Location: Independence Mountain, Colorado

- Scope/Lens: 

- Limiting Magnitude:

NOTES:

We had a reprise on Sat-Sunday, just take the temp down about 10 degrees and wind up about 10mph most of the evening.  The Sun was great with active disk and a large prominence winding down.  The afternoon ended with our ATV visitors bearing a huge pot of Cajun Boil which Tim and I gladly sampled.   Sat sunset was one for a painter, so intense.    Tim went after M101 before twilight had faded, let alone the Moon, and yelled, "I've got the supernova!"  It was punching through along with the faintest wisp of the galaxy nucleus confirming the field.  We did the globular and OC run till moonset around 2300.  The Cass OCs like 7789 were sparkling early.  M51 showed well. 

The Milky Way was looking more like cobwebs in a coal mine after moonset.  Impossible not to gawk, and sweet 3D texture in 10x binoculars.  About 10 degrees around the horizon showed a little haze.  We caught M2, 3, 6, 7, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 27, 28, 31, 32, 110.  M33 was good for a long look.  Comet Garadd was looking nice overhead after moonset.  Tim checked the SQM which read 21.82 to 21.86 about midnight, so pretty close to Foxpark darkness.  The sporadic meteors seemed to pick up Saturday night.  We enjoyed galaxies NGC7331, Stephan's Quintet, NGC891, NGC 7479 with it's spiral visible at 250x.  The globulars also liked the power.  We got to dance with the scope around Dobson's Hole for the Blue Snowball.  It was the best looking PN, with 6543 close and Saturn Nebula trailing.  The Helix was nice with filter, and Tim's 30mm eyepiece with O III lit up the fine structure in the Crescent Nebula. The haze interfered some with NGC 246 and 253.  Gegenschein and zodiacal band gave me more trouble on Sunday morning.  I was more conscentious about mirror cooling on Sun morning and was treated with a more steady Jupiter view, too chaotic to draw readily.  Gotta agree that Io shadow transit of the GRS Sat am was something I'd never caught before.  Tim was chasing Hicksons and I stuck to the standbys.  2 am rolled around Sun morning and it was time to crash.  Wind and cold got to us eventually, sad to let the quality photons go uncaptured in the wee hours.