A special intimacy at 40 million light years or so

February 16-17

I just had a wonderful observing experience, despite the 19 degree temperatures which was really playing havoc with my hands.

I think there's an intimacy - a very human scale - to using a small refractor and a manual, alt-az mount, much akin to the feeling I got when I watched a few years ago as a man climbed into the cockpit of a Sopwith Camel and with the castor oil from the engine filling his nostrils he rolled down the grass field in front of us and took to the skies. How different that was from watching a modern pilot, decked out like Darth Vader, plug himself into an ugly black machine and like some extraneous part in the computer circuits that really fy the plane, roar down a concrete runway and blast into the skies. The Camel pilot was one with his machine. His muscles moved the control surfaces following the dictate of his eyes and brain. And the Camel was small and all there for us to see and understand - it was obvious at a glance why and how it flew and you could imagine yourself building the wooden frame and doping the cloth on the wings.

Today's technology seems to have outrun us. In any event, here I was, my much larger, completely computerized telescopes and video camera sitting idle, while I could relate to this elegant little machine in front of me with it's wonderfully sharp glass eye pointing to the sky and the spot I directed it to with my own eye, brain and arm.

(The chart above - and other charts in this post - are from Starry Nights software. )

I traced out the familiar star patterns. There was the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper leading me to wonderfully orange Arcturus, the Chicago world's Fair star. From Arcturus I could continue the arc to bright and blue Spica. It was over the roof of the house in the southwest. And below it were the four distinctive stars arranged in the kind of free form rectangle a kindergartener might draw. That was Corvus. I knew the corner star closest to Spica was the one I wanted.

I bent down and looked through the red dot, one-power finder. I moved the scope until the star I wanted was blotted out by the red dot. Then I looked in the scope and this is important - the transition from naked eye to telescope was small and smooth. With a 21mm eyepiece the 66mm was working at 19X, about twice as much as the typical binocular, and gave me about a 4-degree field of view - big enough to hold eight full moons side-by-side. In that field it was easy to spot an arrow-like asterism a short distance from the bright star that was my starting point in the general direction of Spica. I nudged the little scope until the arrow was near the bottom of my field of view and there was a tiny, faint blur I knew was my target, M104 - the "Sombrero" galaxy - some 25 millions - or 40 million- or 50 million , or even 60 million light years away. Yeah, these distances aren't certain and turn to different sources and you get different numbers - all of them gigantic. The important point is those photons my brain was now getting excited by had left their source - one of billions of stars in that faint blur - long before homo sapien sapien roamed the Earth.

To be certain I put in a higher powered eyepiece and was rewarded with a delightful asterism that I quickly - and roughly - drew in my notebook. When I got up around 50X I could see it consisted of four eighth magnitude stars, three in a straight line, pointing directly at M104. And as I continued to crank the power up I noticed that above them was a wonderful cascade of half a dozen 10th magnitude stars, tumbling down onto this line. The combination makes the field of M104 very memorable for me. But it's just the sort of thing I tend to miss with the larger telescopes with their smaller fields of view and computer-control. Using a larger scope and "go to" I would zero in on my target without appreciating its stellar context.

Of course all these relatively bright stars are part of our own galaxy, our neighbors in a very real sense. M104 is an unimaginably more distant world. I sat there and inhaled those rare photons along with the crisp morning air. Mind you, there weren't a whole lo of them. What you could see was a tiny blur that with averted vision kept blossoming, then vanishing. It also kept elongating on me - stretching roughly out in the same direction is the line of four stars. But I could not see the black cloud - the dust lanes in its spiral arms - that gives it it's name. This is a very unusual galaxy, by the way - seems to be all core, and we're seeing it edge on, but obviously the dust lanes would be part of the spiral arms.

You have to be there, of course. No words can do it justice. But I hope this gives you a sense of how I feel when using the combination of Astro-Tech Voyager mount and 66mm refractor. The journey over the past several hours was fun and deeply personal as I sat on the upstairs deck with scope, mount, and tea - and we ventured together from Bullialdus on the 10-day Moon to the "Sombrero" galaxy. Along the way we stopped and paid homage to M34 - I call it the "Klingon Battle Cruiser" cluster; Eta Cassiopeia, a sweet split; Iota Cassiopeia, two but not three as there should be; M5, granular at 114X; M27, an easy target at 19X; the Double Double in Lyra, flirting, but no divisive action; a mistake in search of Ras Algethi; and finally, the "poor man's cat's eyes," Nu Draconis; and, of course I took a quick glance at Albireo for comparison and just because it's so damned beautiful.

The Moon, M34 and Cassiopeia doubles were evening stops. At 7:30pm I went out on the upstairs deck where I had set up the little scope earlier. It was beautifully clear and about 23 degrees with no wind. not bad. I settled in for some lunar exploring and testing of simple eyepieces against the larger, and very complex Hyperions. In the final analysis the Hyperions won for me - I do like the eye relief. But the good performance of the Kellners continue to surprise me. I like them better than the Plossls.

But what struck me about the moon tonight - it was actually 10.5 days old during this observing session - was the wonderful arc of prominent craters on display, starting with the "dark lake" of Plato in the north, then jumping across the wide expanse of Mare Imbrium to it's southern border and what may be the best single crater on the Moon, Copernicus. My eye usually ends this journey with the youngster, Tycho, at the southern end, but this time I was brought up short by another distinctive crater in the middle of Mare Nubium, Bullialdus - chart 53 in Antonin Rukl's "Atlas of the Moon." This is a bit simpler and smaller version of Copernicus. It's about 36 miles across and as I examine it closely at 114X I keep remind myself that the little pimple in the middle is taller than Mount Washington. Being in the region, I searched in vain for the "sword in the moon," so beautifully highlighted a couple of nights before when Nubium was just coming into view. I had always known this feature as "the straight wall," but the "sword" tag really fits when the lighting is just right. It's not simply a blade, but an elaborate sword handle as well.

The moon can't hold my attention that long. It fascinates me on one level, but in the final analysis it is too close, too familiar. I always end up reaching for the stars, even when the moonlight washes them out.

Garry Seronik, in his "Binocular Highlights," pushes M34 as a "true binocular cluster." I decided that should make it a prime target for a 66mm, even with a bright Moon washing out most of the sky. He's right. It's delightful in both the 13mm and 8mm Hyperions, and my Klingon Battle Cruiser stands out nicely. I figure I was easily seeing stars to 10.5 and could cleanly split a pair of mag 8 stars that are quite close. In any event, M34 goes on my short list for great objects for a small scope.

While in this vicinity I decided to test my rusty star-hopping skills a little bit by finding first Eta Cassiopeia - very simple - and then Iota, which is a little more of a challenge. Found both quickly. One of the keys to knowing you have Iota in the field is a perfect little triangle of seventh and eighth magnitude stars about 30 minutes away. Iota is a triple and the split of the two bright stars is easy, but I could not make out the mag 9 third component, but I didn't try real hard. Generally speaking I'm simply not at my best at this hour - too tired. I really prefer my morning sessions. In any event, I secured stuff after about 90 minutes and came in, leaving everything handy for the morning, since clear skies were supposed to persist - and they did.

I spent about half an hour deciding on targets for the morning and studying star charts, then went to bed. Up at 3:45 am, I was observing by 4. The Moon had set at 3:30 am and I had mag 5 skies with no wind. I had left everything set-up on the upper deck, so I went right to it, first locating M5. I don't know if I've ever found this manually before. What surprised me was that I never looked at the books or charts I had brought out with me - that my memory from the night before stood me well. At my age whenever your memory does something well, it's a shock ;-)

My first challenge was to find M5. I had studied this a few nights ago with the 5-inch and "go to," then on another night had briefly looked for it manually and failed - but that was with no preparation, just some general guessing.

The way to find this, as outlined nicely in "Turn Left at Orion," is to move down from Arcturus to a point parallel with a distinctive pair of stars in the serpent's head (Serpens Caput). This pair is on a line with a roughly matching pair in Ophicus and the two pairs always catch my eye when they're high in the southern sky. Dropping the line from Arcturus and lining up with the pair in Serpens Caput leaves you at a hole in the sky that contains M5. No easy guide stars nearby, but with the small scope you just put the red dot on this empty space, then using the widefield, low power eyepiece roam around a bit until the bright blur that is M5 pops into view. Actually there's a mag 5 start just 20 minutes away which, wile not distinctive to the naked eye, seems brilliant even in a small scope. The true character of M5, one of the nicest globular clusters in the sky, is obvious as you increase power. At 80X I could easily resolve a few bright stars in the globular's halo. At 114X, near the max for this scope, the core appeared granular, hinting at the several hundred thousand stars that are packed closely together.

This globular is about 27,000 light years away and we're more certain about that distance than the distances to M104. Thinking of that - and knowing that it's the nature of globular clusters to hang out well away from the spiral arms of our own Milky Way, I leaned back in my observing chair and looked around me. Off to my left I could see Cygnus and Aquilla with the Milkyway faintly streaming through them on its way to Sagittarius, hidden by my trees. I took a few moments to get my bearing. To see our Sun and myself in a spiral arm, and to be able to visualize the plane of our galaxy as shown by the Milky Way. From there it was easy to grasp exactly where M5 fit into the picture. (I this doesn't make sense to you I strongly recommend a little piece of free software called "Where is M13." It does a good job of showing you these relationships. But after you've mastered the abstract concepts, apply them when you're under the stars - there's the real satisfaction, for you quickly develop a sense of place and proportion.

I went directly from M5 to M104, and this is another thing I like about the small, manual scope and mount - I simply picked up the whole rig and moved it. If I hadn't the roof-line of the house and nearby tree would have made finding M104 impossible at that time.

M27 had been disappointing a few mornings before in this same scope, but conditions were poor then - including some interference from twilight. From the upper deck my eastern horizon is clear and there was no twilight now, so I tried again. This one is simple. I just draw a line between the "point" of Sagitta and Albireo and sweep along it with the 4-degree field and bing! There it is, looking like a tiny, rectangular cloud at 19X. The cloud takes on it;s distinctive hour-glass shape at higher power and I get a hint of some stars winking at me from inside the nebula. This is the easiest of the planetaries and another must target for small scopes. I really felt it was a beautiful sight at 80X and could see that the southern portion was significantly brighter than the northern. (assuming I have my directions right ;-)

Another absolutely familiar target is the Double double in Lyra. One of these nights I will split it cleanly with the 66mm, but not this morning. This morning the the star whose components lie on an east-west axis and are slightly wider apart than those of the other star really wanted to split. They kept going from being a "figure 8" to just "kissing - but no clean, black sky appeared between them. I gave them some time, hoping for a few moments of steadier air. No luck. The other star moved form being an oblong blob to the figure 8 status - no kissing, no split. Ah well, old friends, just you wait!

Seronik's book also called my attention to a neat binocular double that I thought would be good for the small scope - Nu Draconis. How right he was! One of my favorite doubles is variously known as the "Cat's Eyes" or "Rams eyes." It's in Aries and consist of two very evenly matched fifth magnitude stars that split nicely at high power in the 66mm. There charm is in how identical they look with less than one tenth of a magnitude of difference between them. Nu Draconis is the same - a 4.8 and 4.9 star team up. The difference is the incredibly wide split of Nu Draconis. The "cat's eyes" are about 8" apart. What I dub the "poor man's cat's eyes" are 62" apart. Why "poor man's?" Simply because you can split Nu Draconis with small scopes, or even binoculars. You need a bit more power for Gamma Arietis (aka Mesarthim). In the 66mm Nu was very nice at 19X. Apply too much power and it loses its charm as the stars get too far apart.

Oh, did I mention how to find Nu? It's apiece of cake if you know Draco, or at least the Dragon's head. That's another cockeyed rectangle and Nu simply is the dimmest of the four stars. You can't miss it.

At some point I looked at Alpha Herculis - Rasalgethi, but was surprised when I couldn't get a satisfactory split. It's a Magnitude 3 and 5 star, separated by 4.6" of arc. That would be tough for the little scope, but I expect it to do it. When I reviewed the charts I discovered my problem. Memory had failed me. I was looking at Rasalhague, not Rasalgethi. Rasalhague is the brightest star in Ophiuchus and is very close to Rasalgethi. I was in the right region. I just assumed that since this was "alpha" Herculis, it would be the brightest of the two stars. It's really the fainter star - and since Rasalgethi actually is a variable that can go from 3.1 to 3.9, it might have been even fainter than normal. In any event, I discovered my error when I went in at 5:30 am - but by the time I got back out there was too much twilight to pick it out. it wasn't so light, however, that it would not have shown well in the scope - I just couldn't see enough stars with my naked eye to know where to point the scope. For the first time in hours I could have made use of a computerized, "go to" scope. It would have found Rasalgethi for me, even in th twilight. But that thought didn't even cross my mind. I had had a great 90 minutes, all I could take in the 19-degree temperature, and I had no complaints. With a"hgo to" i probably would have looked at more things - but then, I would not have stayed on them so long, nor seen so them so well. Of course with a little self-discipline you can enjoy both worlds. I don't mean to plunge into the debate of "go to" versus manual control. There's plenty of room for both approaches and I'm sure I'll continue to use both, depending on mood and goals of the moment.