The Fingerprint of God

Observer: Tom Campbell
Location: Iola, Kansas (Long: 95°24'W Lat: 37°55'N)
Equipment: Simmons 10x50WA
Time: 9:00pm - 9:30pm CDT (02:00-02:30 UT)
Transparency: Clear (8/10)
Seeing: Stable (8/10)
Weather: Temperatures in the upper 60s. There was a little breeze.



Tonight, it was about 9:00pm CDT when I got home, but I wanted to try and
spot Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT). I grabbed my binoculars for a quick peek. It's
low enough in the sky to be a difficult target for me, and I actually had to
sneak into my east neighbor's yard (she doesn't mind) for it to appear over
our western neighbor's 2-story house.

Through binoculars, Comet NEAT appeared as a wide oval smudge, reminding me
of a fingerprint. The bright coma was nearly in the center. The background
sky was still too bright to make out any real detail in my binoculars.

While letting my brother Terry look at the comet through my binoculars, I
just casually scanned the sky. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a glint
appear towards Virgo. Looking, I saw what appeared to be a fairly bright
satellite going nearly parallel with the eastern horizon. It started fading,
and I just started to tell my brother about the satellite when it suddenly
erupted into a bright orange streak! It was a meteor! A second later, it was
gone, but that was the first meteor that I remember seeing fade and then
brighten again.

As I was telling Terry about what I had just seen, another glint caught my
eye overhead. This time, it was a satellite, reflecting the Sun for a few
seconds before quickly fading to become barely visible.

After Terry had satisfied himself with his view of the comet, I took the
binoculars and aimed them at Jupiter. Tonight, three of the moons were far
enough away from the glare of the gas giant to detect. Ganymede and Europa
were barely visible on the eastern side of the planet, and I could see
Callisto on the western side.

After that, I just played around for a while with the binoculars, making
sweeps of various parts of the sky and taking advantage of the comfortable
temperature. I saw Corvus peeking over some treetops in the south, so I used
my binoculars and followed my recently-discovered "Sombrero Highway" from
Gamma Corvi to M104 (The Sombrero galaxy), which appeared as a faint, oblong
smudge. Other objects I viewed included Berenice's Hair (Mel 111), M44 (The
Beehive cluster), M67, and M35.

Little Bear Tracks

Observer: Tom Campbell
Location: Iola, Kansas (Long: 95°24'W Lat: 37°55'N)
Equipment: Discovery DHQ 8" dobsonian
Eyepieces: 1.25" Plössls - 25mm (49x), 15mm (81x), 10mm (122x), 6mm (203x)
Time: 10:00pm - 11:30pm CDT (03:00-04:30 UT)
Transparency: Clear (8/10)
Seeing: Stable (8/10)
Weather: Temperatures in the low 60s. There was a light breeze. Relative humidity was about 68%

Observing Summary:
URSA MINOR: Alpha, Pi-1, HJ-2682, Struve1798, Struve1840, Struve1841, Struve1905

I knew that the Moon would be rising within a few hours of sunset tonight, but the twilight sky was so beautiful, I just had to set up my telescope. Knowing the sky would never get truly dark tonight, I opted for some double stars. The "Spirit of 33" double star observers have picked Ursa Minor this month. This constellation is well-placed in my sky, so I picked some of the easier ones from their list.

Struve1905 | Ursa Minor | Double Star | 10:00pm CDT
| RA: 14h 56m 48s | Dec: +70° 50' | Mag: 8.3, 8.4

This double is fairly faint, but both stars are about equal brightness. The tight pair could be separated at 122x, but the view was better at 203x. Both stars appeared white.

Struve1798 | Ursa Minor | Double Star | 10:10pm CDT
| RA: 13h 55m 00s | Dec: +78° 24' | Mag: 7.5, 9.7

This double was easily split at 49x, but the best view was at 122x. The bluish secondary is a couple of magnitudes fainter than the yellow-white primary.

Pi-1 | Ursa Minor | Double Star | 10:20pm CDT
Struve1972 | RA: 15h 29m 12s | Dec: +80° 27' | Mag: 6.6, 7.3

This nice-looking double was fairly wide, easily split at 49x. I preferred the view at 81x, however, due to better color contrast. The brighter star is white, and the fainter companion has a tinge of yellow.

Alpha | Ursa Minor | Double Star | 10:35pm CDT
Polaris | RA: 02h 31m 49s | Dec: +89° 16' | Mag: 2.1, 9.1

I always like looking at this double. Although I could easily find the faint companion at 49x, the best view was at 81x. At this magnification, the primary is yellow-shite and the companion is pale blue. It reminded me of what the Earth and Sun might look like from perhaps a moon of Saturn.

HJ2682 | Ursa Minor | Multiple Star | 10:40pm CDT
| RA: 13h 40m 42s | Dec: +76° 51' | Mag: 6.7, 9.0, 9.7

This was a triple star system, easily split at 49x. Increasing the magnification to 81x revealed some subtle colors. The brightest component was pale yellow-white, but the other two stars were a bit too faint to be able to detect colors. The faintest component is about halfway between and off to one side of the brighter two components, forming a triangle.

Struve1840 | Ursa Minor | Double Star | 11:10pm CDT
| RA: 14h 19m 54s | Dec: +67° 47' | Mag: 7.0, 10.4

The best view of this double was at 81x. The primary was white or blue-white, but I was unable to determine a color for the much fainter companion.

Struve1841 | Ursa Minor | Double Star | 11:15pm CDT
| RA: 14h 21m 06s | Dec: +67° 48' | Mag: 7.1, 10.7

The brightest component of this double forms an almost identical wide optical binary with the brighter star in Struve1840. In fact, both pairs looked very similar, except Struve1841 appeared to have a little different position angle, the secondary star was a little fainter, and it was a little more separated from the primary.

The nearly full Moon was peeking up over the eastern treetops, marking an end to the night's observing. Too bad, because it was a beautiful night. The temperatures stayed fairly constant tonight, allowing the mirror to stay within a half degree of the outside air for most of the evening.