A Night Under Mauna Kea Skies

An eagerly awaited weekend, a new Moon, a couple telescopes, and dark Mauna Kea skies... all the ingredients for a great night of observing.

We had a plan, to participate in another maniacal effort to view all of the objects on a list first published over two centuries ago. It would be my seventh Messier Marathon, tackling the challenge of finding all 110 objects on Charles Messier's famous list. Again Deb would be joining me, the only night of the year my wife observes from dusk to dawn. For this event the VIS would remain open all night, with the parking lot barricaded off to reserve the are for telescopes and observers.

A nice crowd of telescopes was appearing in the small parking lot as bits of gear were unpacked and assembled. Two large dobs and a number of smaller instruments were readied for the night. For Messier hunting I brought my classic 6" RFT, Primero, a completely manual telescope ideally suited for quickly hunting fuzzies. Deb would use GyPSy, her 11" Nexstar GPS, to hunt the same objects Messier first observed a couple centuries ago.

As the sky darkened, the clouds thickened to the point where there were no openings. This was not the situation we had hoped for. But still, we were here and setup, may as well try to wait it out.

The clouds prevented us from finding any of the early evening objects... M74, M77, M31, M32, M110, M54, and M33 all slipping away from us without a chance to catch them. With a completely covered sky we could just see a few of the brightest stars. When a small gap offered I quickly aimed a few degrees below Sirius to see the glowing patch of M41. I joked that I would win this year's marathon with a grand total of one object.

While we waited, we did what amateur astronomers always do under clouds. We checked out each other's gear and talked about all things astronomy. The many VIS visitors wandered through talking about the gear and asking many questions. With the clouds many visitors departed, but those with telescopes set up stuck it out, determined to at least attempt a star party after making the effort to pack telescope up the mountain.

The skies did clear, the clouds slowly thinning to allow more and more sky to be seen. As the openings grew so did the number of check marks on my list. An hour after sunset the skies were nearly completely clear, all telescopes now in action, everyone was busy enjoying the night.

Craig Nance had brought his recently completed 20-inch f/6 dob. This was to be the first real observing night for this telescope. As he hoped, the optics he had worked so hard on performed beautifully. After months of polishing glass it was gratifying to see the beautiful images the telescope could produce. Saturn at 250x was quite nice, the steady air allowing some nice detail to be seen. The mount needs a few modifications, but then these instruments are always a work in progress.

The clouds hampered us throughout the night. We experienced periods of completely clear skies, followed by much of the sky being covered with a blanket of haze. Into the morning there was always a portion of the sky available for observing, but not always the part you wished to observe. As the clouds slowed my progress Deb slowly pulled a few objects ahead of me, enthusiastically plowing through the list.

In those periods when I had checked off every object available, I wandered the sky with the 'scope or enjoyed the view in the other instruments around me. The southern skies around Carina and Crux offered sweeping vistas that are stunning in a short focal length telescope like the one I was using. The three degree field allowing a ridiculous number of stars to fill the field, large clusters and nebula swept past my eager eye...

NGC3372 A wonderful object, Large! Bright! a roughly round nebulous region almost 2° across, a very dark rift cuts through the center of the nebula with an abrupt 90° turn part way across. ηCar itself is a bright obvious star, notably orange, in the brightest region north of the rift, the whole complex is obvious to the unaided eye in the center of the southern Milky Way

IC2602 A coarse cluster over a degree across, quite bright, a few dozen stars arranged in several clumps, a nice object for the 6" RFT, not as impressive as the Pleiades despite the moniker, obvious to the unaided eye.

M68 Small, bright, 10' across, just starting to resolve, not particularly condensed at the core.

M9 Small, bright, 5' across, not resolved, moderately condensed at the core

M6 Very bright! Large! bright and loose cluster filling the low power field, obvious to the unaided eye above the tail of Sco

NGC5139 Big!! Bright!! Stunning even in a modest telescope, an intense ball of stars filling the field, fully resolved, visible to the unaided eye

M23 Large! Bright! bright an loose cluster over across, a few dozens of stars scattered in a half degree patch, nice object for the 6" RFT

One of the great views of the night had to be Omega Centauri in Cliff's 24" telescope with a 21mm Ethos eyepiece. The stunning swarm of stars filled the field with an intensity that had to be seen. Just one of those sights that leaves a lasting impression of wonder for our universe.

Deb and I competed into the dawn, she was determined to to get every object possible and stay ahead of me. The hazy skies gave Deb an advantage she used to the fullest, GyPSy's computer allowing her to hit objects when I had to struggle to find the surrounding stars leading me to the object. In the end we tied at 102 objects each, she missed M30, while I missed M72. No bragging rights for either of us this year.

It was a great night, even with the clouds. A night spent observing with my wife and friends under beautiful Mauna Kea Skies.