Sunday, February 10, 2013
Unk's Messier Album 5...or..."The Awful Tooth"
Last
Saturday evening wasn't supposed to be a Charity Hope Valentine night,
muchachos. No, I planned to lug out my
C8, the CG5, the Mallincam Xtreme, and all the support gear and hit copious
Herschels and Arps from the Possum Swamp Astronomical Society Dark Site. As it
sometimes does, though, cold, hard reality intervened, and if not for my
(sometimes) sweet little ETX 125 I wouldn't have seen a cotton-picking thing.
The fly in
Saturday's ointment came in the form of a toothache. Or at least the
possibility of one. As I hinted recently, there's a better than even chance
your old Uncle Rod will be retiring from his daytime engineering gig shortly.
That being the case, I want to have all my medical and dental ducks in a row.
At the head of that row were my wisdom teeth, which I still have at my advanced
age, and one in particular that was all too obviously going to be a major problem
if I didn't have it out.
I should
have got the sucker removed over thirty years ago. The Air Force dentists
thought I should, but the Strategic Air Command had other ideas. In the midst
of the post 'Nam military depression, SAC needed every single Missile Combat
Crew Member. They made it clear that the time I would be
off-alert would be unacceptable. That was OK with me; my teeth weren't hurting,
and I was a mite queasy about getting them pulled, that's for dadgum sure. Unk
went back to stemming the red tide and thought no more about wisdom teeth for a
long time.
Flash
forward to two weeks ago. I was still queasy, but I knew something had to be
done, and made an appointment with an oral surgeon. His opinion? I needed two pulled, not just one, and it should
be done right away. "Right away," alas, turned out to be last Friday,
which to my dismay was the Friday afore the new Moon weekend. Oh fracking well.
If I told
y'all Unk wasn't a bit concerned sitting in that waiting room Friday morning,
I'd be a-lying. Soon, I’d be in THE CHAIR with a mouth full or weird,
sharp, metal instruments of dental torture, just like poor Alfalfa in The Awful Tooth. When I finally was in that
chair, my fears were not alleviated. Quite the opposite. I knew there would be
an I.V., but those heart and respiration monitors, the oxygen tube, the blood pressure cuff, all that surgical-like stuff, gave your skittish old
Uncle the willies big-time. It was new and scary for an old boy who's never
been under anesthesia nor spent a single night in hospital.
What
followed was actually not scary at all, but it was extremely weird. When he came in, the surgeon (he was both a dentist and an M.D. and obviously smart and talented, which made me
feel slightly better) asked how I was doing; I replied, “Doc, I’d rather be
in Philadelphia.” He raised a syringe, said, "Well I am going to send you someplace different, Rod," injected
it into the I.V. line, and left to fetch a pair of pliers, I presumed.
Sitting
there, I began to feel slightly strange. Kinda tingly like. Not sleepy, though,
or even numb. Certainly didn’t feel on the way to being knocked out. What I actually
expected from having a molar pulled a while back was to be fully conscious but
not caring much and not in any (well, much)
pain. Since nothing seemed to be happening at the moment, I just watched the
clock on the wall in front of me, hoping my surgeon would be back soon to get it
over.
Seemed as if
maybe five or ten minutes had passed when I heard Miss Dorothy asking me if I
was OK and saying, “Honey, IT’S OVER, you’re done.” What the—? Had the doctor
been called away on another case? Decided I couldn't have my teeth yanked for
some reason? There had been no discontinuity. He’d given me that stuff and I
hadn’t seen him again; I’d just sat for a few minutes. Nothing else had happened.
All I could
do was squeak, "It’s over?" Miss Dorothy replied that I was fine, the
bad ol’ teeth were out, and that we could go home. I have never been so
relieved in my life. It was weird, but at least I didn’t have to experience the
double tooth-pulling in any shape form or fashion. So that's what the dadgum MISSING TIME of the Little Grey Dudes from
Zeta Reticuli II is all about.
The rest of
Friday afternoon was spent half dozing in front of the cable TV back at the Old
Manse. Most remarkable thing? I didn't need the pain pills I’d got, and by the
time evening came in I was drinking a little, uh, "sarsaparilla," and watching one of my beloved classic
monster movies, White Zombie with
Bela Lugosi. Saturday morning, I was breakfasting on king cake (Mardi Gras) ice
cream from Old Dutch and beginning to believe
I was feeling good enough for a trip to the dark site.
But not maybe
in full up mode. My recovery seemed swift, but—not to gross ya'll out—I bled
for quite a while Friday and was not anxious to get that started again. My C8, Celeste, and the CG5 mount are remarkably easy to tote and set up, but I feared
that for once even that would be too much. OH CHARITY!
So, I'd take
Charity out to the dark site and work on my Messier Album. Wasn't what I planned, but better than not seeing anything. And
the weather predictions, passing clouds by mid-evening, didn't sound optimum
for deep voyaging with a Mallincam Xtreme, anyway. So, I'd just throw Miss C.
in the truck and head for the PSAS field. Or would I?
While I was
on the phone with long time observing companion Pat Rochford, he
mentioned he was going to be doing a photometry run out at his StarGate
Observatory if the weather permitted. Hmmm…
While I
mostly practice astronomy as recreation, not science, these days, I’d been
wanting to see Pat's Meade 14-inch SCT and Optec photometer in action. I also
had to admit a half hour trip to Pat's home instead of an hour to the backwoods
was a safer bet given my condition. "Hey, would you mind some company
tonight?" Pat said he'd be happy to have me back at StarGate, which I hadn’t
visited in way too long.
After hanging
out with Pat and wife Stephanie for a while, I said, just like old
times, "Well, let's get to work." Which is exactly what we
did. I thought I'd set Charity up on the observatory's deck, the former home of Pat's long-gone mega Dobsonian, and do a little visual touring while he did his variable star work from the roll off roof annex that houses the big
Meade CAT.
Sweet
Charity on her tripod with everything connected, it was time to see how she
would behave. Well, almost. I took a few minutes to shoot some (terrestrial)
images for a Sky and Telescope
article I am working on, and by the time I flipped Miss C’s o-n/o-f-f to o-n,
it was good and dark. But not too clear, even though there were no clouds yet.
Pat’s next-door
neighbors to the south were having, I guess, a pre-Superbowl party. And not
just any sort of pre-Superbowl party, but one that involved loud music,
including much countrified music, and a cotton-picking bonfire. Naturally, the smoke was drifting right across the Orion area of
the sky. Oh, well, I’d get Charity up and cranking and maybe the cold (it was
in the 40s F., y’all) would eventually drive the partiers inside.
After
finishing her little North and Level ballet, Charity chose Sirius (which I
thought was a little low) and Capella as her alignment stars. She stopped a
reasonable distance from both suns, I centered them up, and after she decided
“Alignment Successful,” I mashed in “M42.” There it was in the 20mm Orion
Expanse eyepiece which is my usual finding ocular for Miss Valentine. Kinda on
the edge of the field though. How about something on the other side of the sky
as a test? Little ol’ E.T., star cluster NGC 457, was well up, so I sent
Charity that-a-way. She stopped, beeped, I put my eye to the eyepiece and saw—absolutely nuttin’.
When Charity
gives me guff like this, it usually means she’s ready for drive training. That
doesn’t take long, and I went ahead and did it, using Polaris as my target,
since there was no way to use a terrestrial object (which is preferred) on
Pat’s fenced-in deck. Did it help? Maybe a little. E.T. was on the field edge
now instead of half a degree away. M42 was still on the eyepiece’s outer
periphery though. In retrospect, I think it was mostly Charity’s choice of
Sirius that caused the problem, not any o’erweening need for drive training.
Or maybe she
was listening when Pat, who hadn’t seen the little scope in years, asked me how
she was doing. Unk foolishly replied: “Purty good, but she can be a witch with
a capital 'B' when she wants to.” Missy was undoubtedly offended and decided to
teach silly Unk a lesson (yet again). Whatev’. While not bang-on, Charity still
put anything I asked for in the field, if usually on the hairy edge. It was
time to go get some Ms.
“Unk’s
Messier Album 4” was a couple of months back, so a quick review of the rules is
maybe in order before we have a look at the Great Nebula. The plan is to
observe and sketch each of the 110 Messiers, just like legendary observer John
Mallas did in his 1960s Sky and Telescope
columns, which later went on to form his justly famous book (with astrophotographer
Evered Kreimer) The Messier Album.
How does
what Unk sees with the 5-inch ETX compare to what Mr. M. saw with his 4-inch
Unitron? That is what we are here to find out, campers, to the tune of 3 – 4 objects
each installment, something close to the rate at which Mr. Mallas tackled them
in his S&T columns. The matter in italics has been transcribed directly
from my (audio) log.
M42/43 (January 1970)
What can you
say? What I can say about the Great Nebula and have said before is that it
looks good in anything from a pair of teeny-weenie binoculars to the biggest
Dob you can muster. It’s great at low power and it’s great at high power. It’s
just fracking great, period. Seeing it just about perfectly framed in Charity
on this crisp 40-ish January evening took me back to similar nights in the
sixties when I first began to wander this astounding cloud with my Palomar Junior. When the wind changed and the
smoke drifted off, anyhow.
With the smoke from the bonfire
nextdoor pouring across Orion, I didn’t expect much, even from M42. But I was
wrong. It’s hard to make this thing look bad, no matter how poor the
conditions. While I didn’t spy the e and f stars in the Trapezium, I really
didn’t try for ‘em very hard. Besides the smoke, the seeing tonight ain’t all
it could be. When the wind changes direction, I am amazed to see M43’s comma
shape clearly. That is good for a 5-inch telescope in not-so-hot skies.
John Mallas
and I purty much tied as far as what we saw of 42 and 43. He used lower power—he
mentions 25x and 60x—and saw a little more of the nebulosity west of the Trapezium
where it loops back in on itself. His drawing is a splendid one, but his M43 does
look a little strange; more like a triangular patch than the comma most of us
see.
M35 (November 1968)
Wanting to
get away from that dadgum smoke, I moved eastward to Gemini and to one of the
best open clusters in the sky. As a matter of fact, I believe M35 is Unk’s
favorite galactic cluster. Looking at its numberless tiny stars made me think
not of boyhood expeditions to this Messier, but of seeing it with Old Betsy, my
12-inch Dobsonian, from the backyard of Chaos Manor South a mere twenty years ago.
That view of the cluster in all its spangled glory with its smaller companion,
more distant cluster NGC 2158, well resolved, really brought home to me what pouring on a
little aperture can do, even under poor skies. With Charity on this night? NGC
2158 wasn’t resolved, but it was visible and even looked a little grainy…
I’m using the Pro Optic (Adorama) 40mm
Plossl on M35. I don’t normally care for long focal length eyepieces, but it
gave me just a little more field than the Orion 20mm Expanse, and I needed that
to try to squeeze NGC 2158 into the field. The main cluster is beautiful.
Did my best to draw it, but the number of stars visible is overwhelming. NGC
2158 is an elongated haze in the 40mm, and is fairly bold in the 15mm Expanse,
assuming a grainy, “wants to resolve” appearance.
Mr. Mallas
opinion of the cluster? It’s impossible to compare my drawing with his since he
didn’t do one. As always, he declines to draw an open cluster. I’ll admit this
one was tough to sketch—so many tiny stars. Anyhow, Mallas mostly talks about
the “shapelessness” of M35, describing a round, rich patch of stars. Was he
using too little magnification? Too much? I don’t know, but I do know I can see
lines of brighter stars and a strong triangular patch he did not notice. John doesn’t
mention NGC 2158, which is beautiful in the Kreimer image. I’d say Miss Charity
delivered considerably more of this field than his Unitron.
M79 (December 1969)
Globular
cluster M79 in Lepus is another of my favorites, maybe because it is Winter’s
only Messier glob, and is the herald of the return of their hordes beginning in
the spring. Anyhoo, with the fire having died down a little and Hank Williams Junior having
been replaced by Queen—I thought hearing guitar licks from fellow amateur astronomer Brian
May was a good omen—Charity and I headed for the home of the frightened little
hare to have a look at 79.
M79 isn’t much more than a small,
round smudge of a fuzzball tonight—mostly due to the smoke still drifting
through Lepus, I guess. Continued staring does show one prominent star just
outside the nucleus and, as I continue to look and use averted vision, several
tiny little guys closer in to the center. The core is grainy, but not close to
resolved.
Mister M.
makes a strong comeback on M79 with his excellent drawing that depicts
considerably more stars than I saw. He calls the glob “impressive” and I
agree, even though it was badly compromised for me and Charity on this night.
M78 (January 1970)
Globular
essayed, I knocked off the last Album object for the night, reflection nebula
(with a bit of emission nebulosity thrown in) M78. I remember how I sometimes struggled
with this one with the Pal from Mama and Daddy’s semi-dark 60s backyard, so I
was interested to see how bad or good it would be from Pat’s now somewhat light-polluted locale.
M78 is starkly visible as a large
elongated cloud around a prominent double star, PPM 149436, despite lousy
conditions. In fact, not only can I make out the patch that is M78 and see it
is elongated, I can tell that it is offset from the stars; they are not in the
exact center of the nebula. At times, it is obvious the edge of the nebula is irregular.
How did John
Mallas do on this one? Not so hot, I’m afraid. What he draws and describes
couldn’t be more different from what I saw or what is in Kreimer’s excellent astrophoto.
John describes “a faint comet” shape with a “head” (a star) and a broad tail,
and that’s what his drawing shows. It’s almost as if he were looking at Hubble’s
Variable Nebula in nearby Monoceros, not M78. What happened? Unfortunately, we
will never know. John Mallas, an outstanding observer and writer, was taken
from us way too soon in 1975
.
That was
four Ms, the fire next door had been well stoked again, and Hank Junior was once
more hollering some kind of foolishness about something or other, so I thought it was high time for a
break. Looked in on Pat and Big Mama Meade, watching fascinated as they did their
thing, checking check stars, measuring sky brightness, and doing integrations
of variables. To be honest with you-all, I’ve never been much interested in
variable stars, but watching Pat’s Optec photometer clock off photons
cruising in from distant suns gave me some idea, finally, of how you can get
all wrapped up in the AAVSO stuff.
What next
for moi? Thought I’d look at a few
cool things before the clouds, which were predicted to start drifting back in
in mid-late evening, made their disgusting appearance. Where first? A comparatively
recent favorite of mine, Tau Canis Majoris, The Jumping Spider Star. It’s a favorite, yeah, but I can never,
ever remember the NGC number of the cluster it is associated with.
Dadgum good
thing I had my iPhone on my belt. Brought up SkySafari, searched for “Tau Canis
Majoris,” was rewarded with a detailed chart, and had all its specs,
including the cluster’s NGC number, at my fingertips. If you have an iPhone,
iPod, iPad, or an Android, don’t ask questions, just get SkySafari.
I am only sorry I can’t use it on my Windows PCs. It’s good enough that it
sometimes makes me want to go Macintosh (there is a SkySafari for OSX), and that is saying something, brothers and
sisters.
I discovered
Tau when I was writing The Urban Astronomer’s Guide, when I was
constantly on the lookout for interesting, easy objects. What you have got here
is a bright magnitude 4.37 star, Tau Canis Majoris, superimposed on—or maybe even
a member of—a small (8’) open star cluster, NGC 2362. This bright star is sitting
in the middle of a lovely little triangular cluster, looking like a spider
sitting in a dew-drop spangled web, when, suddenly, that spider JUMPS, moves
independently of the cluster stars. There is no doubt this is just due to the
contrast difference between Tau and the compact cluster’s wee stars, but it
sure is cool to see.
What else,
what else? How about good old M50
over in Monoceros? This is an outstanding galactic cluster, a reasonably dense
group about 15’ in size and somewhat triangular in shape. Looks a little like a
less rich M37, I reckon. I learned to love this one back in the mid 1980s. M50
was just so dependable, hanging
reasonably high in my light polluted sky and always looking good. Like it did
on this evening.
I am always
amazed at how small stars look in Charity, even at fairly high magnification. And
especially at medium powers like the 100x I was applying with the 20mm. M50
looked so nice I probably should have sketched it for The Album, but that would
have been one too many for one night, I thought.
Next up?
Since I was in Monceros, had to be the Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264. This is another one I used to
agonize over when I was knee high to a grasshopper. The cluster itself, which
forms the unmistakable shape of a Yule tree complete with a star at the top and
its trunk at the bottom, was cool and easy, yeah, but I was always after a
trace of the vaunted nebulosity near the tree’s “star.” This nebulosity forms
the background of the Cone Nebula. You won’t be surprised to hear I never saw a
pea-picking bit of it, much less the Cone itself.
I suppose
I’d forgot how big the Christmas Tree is—it had been an awful long time since
I’d been here. It’s 20’ across and just barely fit in the ETX’s field. Nice,
but it really needs about twice that much space to strut its stuff. The big
tree admired, I briefly considered slewing over to the Rosette Nebula to see if
I could bring it out with an OIII filter if I could fit it into the 40mm Plossl.
But the smoke was back and, even more seriously, those forecast clouds were
arriving.
One to grow
on? M82 was up, so why not. At first I was right put out at Charity. After she
stopped, not a trace of the peculiar looking edge-on galaxy did I see. Then I noticed
it lurking on the field edge. Centered up, it was obvious but not much good.
Just a little gray wisp of a cigar shape, not a hint of the dark-lane detail the
ETX usually picks up. A look at the sky gave the “why.” More and more clouds
were speeding across the heavens; it looked like Big Switch time for the
Rodster.
Powered off
my small girlfriend and went over to see what Pat was up to. He was on to the
next star of the evening but wasn’t having much luck; the clouds were ruining
his data. He had been able to complete one star during the brief interludes
when our friends next door forgot to stir their fire, so the evening had not
been wasted for him. He was in agreement: we were obviously done for this
Saturday Night.
The real joy
of a Charity Hope Valentine night, especially when you are not feeling quite up
to par, is that she can be back in the vehicle in five or ten minutes. And she
was, which was welcome, even though I wasn’t feeling a bit bad. I’d taken my
antibiotic horse pill at 8:15, and other than that hadn’t given a thought to my
dental situation. Still, it was good I didn’t have to tote no barges nor lift
any bales.
Back at the
Old Manse, still feeling just fine, a little Yell and Svengoolie
put a coda on my evening. I was just in time to see the old fashioned HORROR
HOST run Lon Chaney Junior in The Wolfman.
Did you know it has an astronomy connection? Yep, early in the film, poor, doomed
Larry Talbot looks through a gigantic and beautiful refractor, though he uses it to ogle village girls, not the stars.
To sum up my
slightly “off” Saturday run? Struggled a little with Charity, but that was OK.
It seems my most memorable evenings with her are, strangely, the ones where
everything doesn’t go right. Got
another installment of Unk’s Messier Album in the bag. Got to spend some time
with my old friend Pat and watch him work his variable star wizardry. In other
words, smoke or no smoke, clouds or no clouds. Awful Tooth or no Awful Tooth,
there just wasn’t no downside to my Saturday night, muchachos.
Next Time: More Video Fun...
Comments:
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Glad to hear the dentist wasn't too traumatic.
Having just got a new to me 1980s orange tube C5 I know what you mean about the ease of set up with Charity, I find my C5 a breeze to set up compared to my 8" SCT, whilst the 8" tube and fork mount is a bit of a handful carrying out the house the C5 is simple one arm stuff. Sometimes ease of set up trumps aperture!
Clear skies
James
Having just got a new to me 1980s orange tube C5 I know what you mean about the ease of set up with Charity, I find my C5 a breeze to set up compared to my 8" SCT, whilst the 8" tube and fork mount is a bit of a handful carrying out the house the C5 is simple one arm stuff. Sometimes ease of set up trumps aperture!
Clear skies
James
# posted by 
: 11:36 AM
: 11:36 AM
Almost as enjoyable as a colonoscopy...so I hear anyhow.(I mean the drugs they use...don't know where you are, or care)
# posted by : 2:08 PM
: 2:08 PM
I think what they give you is called a dissociative anesthetic. It's not really an anesthetic. It's more like a drug that elicits amnesia. You're still awake but you can't remember a gal-derned thing 'till it wears off. That way the docs and nurses can call you what they think of ya and ya won't remember a thing.
Anywho, glad ya did good. Just don't grit your teeth to much for a few weeks...!
Clear Skies.
Don
Anywho, glad ya did good. Just don't grit your teeth to much for a few weeks...!
Clear Skies.
Don
# posted by : 7:41 PM
: 7:41 PM 
Hope you are feeling fine, Uncle Rod.
Read this with interest as usual. I actually pull out the S&T DVDs with the old Mallas sketches to compare.
I hope also that the combat crew badge picture is a teaser for an upcoming, long-promised blog entry touching on this page in your career a little less obliquely...
Read this with interest as usual. I actually pull out the S&T DVDs with the old Mallas sketches to compare.
I hope also that the combat crew badge picture is a teaser for an upcoming, long-promised blog entry touching on this page in your career a little less obliquely...
Thanks... You know, one of these days--at the risk of boring all and sundry--I might write about my Cold War adventures. ;-)
Rod:
Just to drop a note, once again you've gotten me back into the game. Long, Long ago and far, far away (Sci.Am.Astro) you helped me decide on a C8. Your Herschel series has made me get "The complete guide to the Herschel Objects" and on March 8th I start my quest at our clubs dark sky site with that C8.
BTW I love to hear about your "Cold War" stuff - as an ASA/NSA alumni I would find it very interesting.
Just to drop a note, once again you've gotten me back into the game. Long, Long ago and far, far away (Sci.Am.Astro) you helped me decide on a C8. Your Herschel series has made me get "The complete guide to the Herschel Objects" and on March 8th I start my quest at our clubs dark sky site with that C8.
BTW I love to hear about your "Cold War" stuff - as an ASA/NSA alumni I would find it very interesting.
S.a.a....talk about a blast from the past! Those were the days. I'll figure out how to work some Cold War tales into the warp and weave of the blog...
Hey Rod - Chris Lee up at NOVAC, I was looking for a RSS feed for your blog so I could link up the Sunday postings up automatic like for us up North! Hope you are doing well and that we see you later this summer at AHSP! If you have a feed option somewhere and would send along to webmaster@novac.com I would greatly appreciate it!
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