Sunday, November 10, 2013
Operation Arp Night 3: 105 Down, 234 to Go
Well,
muchachos, another Halloween has come and gone. Believe it or no, your old
Uncle didn't get a bag full of rocks this year. I
got a telescope full of Arp galaxies. Y’all probably thought I’d forgot all
about those little sprites. It’s been dang near ten months since you
heard anything about my “next” observing project, the one that came after The
Herschel Project, Operation Arp. Which is my quest to observe
(mostly with a Mallincam video camera) Halton Arp’s disturbed, weird looking,
and otherwise strange galaxies.
The reason you
haven’t heard anything more about Operation Arp isn't that I’ve lost interest
in bagging those distant and sometimes dim galaxies. It is admittedly a less absorbing project than
hitting the Herschels was, but that’s not why O.A. has been on hiatus. The reason,
as I don’t have to tell those of y’all who observe from below the Mason Dixon
Line, has been the weather.
The rest of
the country has had its share of cloudy nights over the past spring and summer,
but the Southland got hit particularly hard. I had two semi-good nights at the
Chiefland Astronomy Village last January, knocking off 28 Arps and
a passel of Herschels I needed re-image, but that was near about
it. The single halfway decent evening I got at the Deep South Regional Star Gaze Spring Scrimmage in May was not good enough for Arp
galaxies. There were clear nights here and there after that, but mostly when
there was a fat Moon in the sky.
The weather situation
has finally turned around—sorta. Possum Swamp is still getting plenty of
rain—we always do in the autumn—but at least it is interspersed with passing
cold fronts that clean and clear the sky temporarily. And it even looked like that
might happen during one of our favorite star parties, the Deep South Regional Star Gaze, now held near
Norwood, Louisiana. We’ve been doing DSRSG almost every year for two decades,
and it’s tops with us for good facilities, good skies, and good folks.
 |
| Who doesn't want fried chicken for breakfast? |
Maybe. By
the Monday preceding the star party, the weather outlook for Louisiana was
getting worse by the minute. There’d be zilch Wednesday, Thursday, Halloween
night, would be worse with (possibly) violent storms, and Friday, which had
looked so good, was now tending to “partly cloudy.” Should we wait till Friday morning
to leave? Maybe still go as scheduled on Wednesday but not try to set up on the
field that day?
After some
consideration, we decided to depart Wednesday as planned. Our meals and lodging
were paid for, and, as I’ve often said, we always have fun at a star party
clouds or not. Should we delay setting up the gear for a couple of days? That
was a possibility depending on how bad the forecasts became. I at least wanted
to claim one of the limited number of field power outlets on Wednesday.
Tuesday,
following a run on Target for supplies that included propane bottles for my
Black Cat heater, Jack Links and granola bars for on-field snacking, bottled
water, and—natch—Monster Energy Drinks, I got to work loading Miss Van Pelt,
our 4Runner. Some time back, I did a blog on star party packing, and in the course of that did some serious cogitating on
how best to load the truck. Following my own suggestions from that blog, it was
amazing how easily the astro-junk went in Miss Van Pelt this time. Easy or
hard, it is fracking wonderful to get the packing done the night before a star
party. Not having to face that makes departure morning an absolute joy.
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| Wednesday afternoon on the observing field... |
After a
fairly restful evening—I really went to bed too early—I was up at 6 a.m. and
rarin’ to go. Miss D. was already bustling about. I checked my always copious
email, laid out the cats’ provisions, made one last gear check to ensure I
hadn’t forgot anything important—I know I am always going to forget something—and me and D. hit the road for
the wilds of Louisiana. Well, we hit the road after a stop at the neighborhood (downtown) Mickey D’s where Unk
feasted on a fried chicken biscuit as per normal.
The just
over three-hour journey to DSRSG seemed to go faster than ever before. In fact,
it was faster. Our new GPS, a Garmin,
which replaced the Tom-Tom some light-fingered miscreant helped himself to, had
a new and quicker route planned for us. After you leave I-10, I-55, and I-12
behind, there are miles and miles of two lane country roads to face. The GPS had
discovered a new route that cut nearly half an hour off our usual time and was considerably
more direct.
Afore long,
we were turning off at the Feliciana Retreat Center (FRC) sign and driving onto the
well-remembered grounds. This was our fourth year at this Presbyterian church retreat (D. and I missed 2011),
and it had now assumed the familiar and friendly feel of our previous venues,
Percy Quin State Park and Camp Ruth Lee.
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| The Lodge rooms are small but cozy... |
Gear set up
on the observing field was not exactly a joy, but it was bearable. In advance
of the storm front, temperatures were kicking up into the dadgum 80s, and it
was a little sticky. I was tired and sweaty by the time Mrs. Peel was on her
mount and the tailgating canopy was up, and was dang sure glad I’d worn shorts.
Miss Van
Pelt unloaded, I connected to the field’s power board with the el cheapo
100-foot extension cord I got at the Wal-Mart. What a relief it would be not to
have to worry about batteries to run scope, computer, and dew heaters. I power the Mallincam Xtreme off a battery in the interest of obtaining the
cleanest video possible, but even though the camera has a Peltier
cooler, it is a current sipper. I could probably run it for a couple of nights
on its jump-start battery.
Over to the
Lodge to unpack. Yes, the rooms are tiny, but they are clean, air-conditioned/heated,
and have individual bathrooms. No, it’s not like spending a night in the Ritz—or even in the Chiefland Days Inn—but it is one hell of a lot better than
the dirty, buggy chickie cabins we suffered through at our previous location, nearby
Camp Ruth Lee, for four years.
What next?
We hung out on the field talking to old friends, many of whom we only see once
or twice a year, fiddling with the gear, walking about, and just relaxing—which is almost as big a reason to go to a star party as observing is.
After the first raffle giveaway, where Unk, as usual, didn’t win a thing, it
was time for supper.
To say the
food at Feliciana is a cut above normal star party fare is to way understate it. Not only are the victuals
considerably better than the “edible” you get most places, you eat ‘em in attractive
surroundings. The traditional first night entree, grilled chicken, is not my
fave, but either it had improved this year or Unk was hungrier than normal. I
gobbled it up along with a large salad from the (yes) salad bar and a huge hunk
of frosting-slathered carrot cake.
After the meal,
I had two goals: walk off all that food,
and take a critical look at the sky. The field is about a quarter mile from the Lodge and the last thing I want is to have to hike out
there in the middle of the night in a storm to secure the gear like I had to do
in ought-nine. I’d already staked down the
tripod of Emma’s VX mount just in case, but if it was evident bad stuff was on
the way, I wanted to move anything that might be damaged by rain or wind into
the truck. Including Mrs. Peel. I didn’t fancy spending the evening fretting
about my beautiful C8, and wind up getting dressed and going out to the field
in the middle of the night to pull her off the mount like I did last spring.
It didn't take much looking in the sky to see nasty weather was in the offing. Heck, you
didn’t even have to look. There was a still, quiet, uber-sticky feel to the air
that said, “storm’s a-comin’.” I moved what needed to be moved into the
4Runner, including the C8, and pounded in my tent stakes a wee bit more.
Particularly those securing the tarps we attach to the Coleman tailgating
canopy to form its sides in cold weather. Following the front passage,
temperatures were supposed to fall into the lower 40s, if not lower.
After I’d
done all I could to prepare for the weather, I spent an hour or three visiting
with my fellow Deep Southers on the field. Till the humidity and skeeters got
to me. This location normally does not have much of a mosquito problem, even in
the spring, but the current conditions were bringing in waves of ‘em. I headed
back to the Lodge, where I spent an hour or two looking at DVDs on my laptop,
episodes of Star Trek’s first season,
including one of my favorites, “What are Little Girls Made Of?” before packing
my bags for dreamland.
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| A big southern breakfast took our minds off the weather... |
Thursday
dawned. Well, sort of. The thick clouds of Wednesday were thicker than ever. I
hadn’t been awakened in the middle of the night by thunder-boomers as I had
been in the spring, but when I poked my head
outside after I’d snagged a cuppa java from the dining hall, it was already sprinkling
rain. To top it all off, a look at wunderground.com on the laptop (FRC's Internet access was much more reliable than in the spring) showed we were under
a freaking tornado watch.
After a
traditional southern breakfast (biscuits, sausage, grits) I headed to the field
while I still could. Actually, the rain mostly
held off through early afternoon, and I was able to spend some time out there with
my friend, former student, and Escambia Amateur Astronomers’ Association
President Jon Ellard. That young man is one of my astronomy success stories,
and anybody who thinks amateur astronomy doesn't have a future only needs to
look at him and younguns like him—and there are many more of them than you
might think.
I was also
pleased to see long-time Astronomical League figure Mike Benson had arrived.
Dorothy and I hadn’t seen Mike since 2003 when he and the Barnard Seyfert
Astronomical Society had Unk up as a speaker at that year's Tennessee Star party. Mike
was onsite to chair a meeting of SERAL (Southeast Region of the Astronomical
League) Friday afternoon, and Dorothy and I were looking forward to that.
Udder than
that? Thursday was purty much like Wednesday till mid afternoon. Until about
two o’clock, when the rain sprinkles came back and this time did not diminish.
By supper (FRC's legendary pot roast and mashed taters), it was pouring. How
did I spend a rainy Halloween night? Jon and I had planned to dress as Obi Wan and Luke and give light saber
demos on the field (no, I am NOT
kidding), but the wet conditions and lack of kids on Thursday dissuaded us. Next year, y’all.
 |
| And the rains came Thursday... |
Instead, I
watched one of my favorite Halloween flicks, maybe my favorite Halloween movie
of all time, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, thanks to a DVD DSRSG Managing Director
Barry Simon brought along. Sitting with my buddies watching it on a big-screen
TV in the lodge, I wished I had rice to throw. Back in the room, I viewed the
DVD of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie
Brown like I do every October 31, and was soon dozing off to the sound of
rain on the roof.
Come Friday
morning, I was almost afraid to look outside. Fronts have been known to stall
out, after all. Fueled by plenty of coffee, I worked up the nerve and had a peep.
The sky was not cloudless yet, but that was obviously the way it was headed.
There was a good breeze, and the temperature was in the low 60s or maybe even
the upper 50s. That sure perked me up and helped me enjoy a breakfast that was
even more southern than before, adding sawmill gravy to the down-home mix.
The question
Friday wasn’t “What do I do all day?” but “How do I do everything today?” In
addition to getting the repacked gear unpacked, the scope back on her mount,
and the things that had got wet dried out, there was a presentation to hear,
that SERAL meeting to attend, and the first big raffle giveaway’s prizes to
drool over.
First up was
one of the best presentations I’ve heard at a star party in a while, Walt
Cooney’s talk on amateur contributions to the science of astronomy, and in
particular CCD photometry of asteroids. I don’t normally think of DSRSG as a
star party that’s big on presentations; I think of it as being more focused on
observing and having fun, but there have been some real good talks over the years. Walt was followed
by the SERAL meeting where old and new business was addressed and Unk and Jon
were installed as SERAL officers. I have been known to complain about the AL,
so it’s high time I put my money where my mouth is and pitch in and help out, I
reckon.
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| D. and her beautiful new scope... |
Miss Dorothy
feeling better, the next thing on the agenda was the raffle at 3 o’clock. I
often say I never win anything at a star party, but that ain’t strictly true. I’ve
had a right good record of picking up little stuff in recent times. I got a
cable to allow me to control the telescope with my iPhone at the AHSP this year, and I won a camera mount for the
iPhone at the Friday afternoon raffle. That was cool; I’ve had a lot of fun
just hand-holding my phone camera up to the eyepiece, like I did Friday
afternoon to capture a cool Solar flare through Jon’s H-alpha scope. But that
was small potatoes compared to what Dorothy
won.
Miss D. has
been a consistent winner, but I was still amazed when her name was pulled for a
beautiful Explore Scientific AR-102 refractor. Yes, Dorothy had won a big,
beautiful telescope. This wasn’t the only big prize donated by Explore Scientific to our little star party,
either. In addition to yet another 102, there were several of the company’s
fantastic eyepieces. Scott Roberts and his colleagues sure have my gratitude
for their kindness and generosity to their fellow amateurs. As I always say,
when you need astro-gear, buy it from somebody, support somebody, who
supports us.
You’ll get a
full report on Dorothy’s new telescope and the last day of the star party,
Saturday, next week. For now, all I’ll say is her scope looked luscious when I
pulled it out of the box to check the ring/dovetail situation and see if it
would be likely to balance on the VX with the single counterweight I’d brought
along. I was tempted to mount her on the VX right then and there, but Mrs. Peel
and the Mallincam Xtreme were ready to go, and I wanted to hit the deep, deep
sky hard on this first good night.
Supper,
which was a somewhat odd but good concoction, fried catfish with a side of
shrimp scampi, came and went, the skies held, and soon enough it was time to
get the scope cranking. I’d considered several observing projects for this
year’s DSRSG, but the only one that had much appeal was the aforementioned
Operation Arp. If there’s anything
negative to be said about it, it’s just that it is all galaxies, and, since I
did so many, many galaxies in the course of The Herschel Project, it would be
nice to look at something else for a change. At least the Arps are usually interesting galaxies, so that’s what I’d
do Friday night.
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| iPhone Sun... |
Since it was
not dark enough to get started with galaxies right after AllStar was done, I
essayed a second go-to alignment. I had moved the mount a fair distance in the
course of the polar alignment, after all. Even so, my go-to accuracy would
probably have been fine, but since I had the time for a redo, why not?
Did a quick
series of go-tos to M13, M57, and a couple of other pretties to make sure mount
and Mallincam Xtreme were doing their things as they should be, fired up SkyTools 3, and hit the Arp list. Since
I’d knocked out less than thirty of the suckers on that winter night down in
Chiefland, I had plenty of fuzzies in plenty of constellations to choose from
under galaxy-laden fall skies. One
difference from that night in Chiefland? I upped my exposure from my customary
14 seconds to 28 in hopes of catching more detail. Ain’t much point in doing Arps
if’n you ain’t going after details, is there?
I was
pleased at what I brought home, 77 Arps, most of which looked purty good given
a night that started out humid and ended up with ground fog aplenty. Now, don’t
get skeered, y’all. I ain’t gonna rattle off the vitals of all 77 galaxies. I
would like to share a few of my favo-rights from Friday night with you,
howsomeever…
The Arps
“Arp 295” consists two interacting galaxies,
PGC 72139, an edge on, and an intermediate inclination companion, PGC 72155, 4’36”
to the northeast. PGCs have a reputation for being tough, but these two are in the magnitude 14.5 range and not hard. I couldn’t
see the tidal tails that link the galaxies in their POSS plate, but it was
obvious the edge-on is disturbed.
Arp 15 (NGC 7393) in Aquarius looks very much the same
on my monitor as it does on its POSS image, a bright golden center with arms
that seem bent back upon themselves. This galaxy was noted for its “detached”
segments by Arp. That’s not obvious, but its peculiar semi-ring shape is.
Aquarius' NGC
7727 is also Arp 222, a large
face-on spiral that is pretty obviously interacting with a smaller galaxy, NGC
7724, which is 12’ to the northwest. Despite a bright background sky to the southeast, I could see
a large and distorted spiral arm just like in the POSS plate.
Arp 325, which has a quoted magnitude figure
of 17.9, is easy to see because the galaxies that make it up are tiny and star-like.
They are small enough that it’s hard to tell exactly how many of them there
are, but I thought I counted five. These little fellers form an Arp because they
constitute a galaxy “chain,” one of Chip Arp’s categories.
Not all Arps
are 17th magnitude ghosts. There are even a few Messiers among them including
good, old M32, Andromeda’s little companion, which is in the catalog as Arp 168. Why it is an Arp is not clear
to me. M32 is listed among the Arps with “diffuse counter tails,” but what or
where that is, I don’t know.
Arp 273 in Andromeda is a strange sight. It’s
a confusing welter of spiral arms that seems indecipherable until you realize
you are seeing two colliding galaxies, PGC 8961 and PGC 8970, whose skinny arms
are nearly intertwined. At magnitude 13.8, this is easy and gives up
considerable detail.
I liked all
the Arps I hit on this night, and I saw some interesting details in almost every
one, but for now, I’ll end with one of the most spectacular members of the
catalog, Arp 37, another Messier,
Cetus’ M77. This bright Seyfert galaxy is not numbered among the Arps for that
reason, but because there is a “low surface brightness companion” in the field.
What that is, I dunno. The obvious candidate is LEDA 1154903, which is dimmer
than magnitude 17, but it is over 10’ away. I couldn’t find the answer to this and
some other Arp questions I had on the Internet, so it’s probably time for me to
buy Jeff Kanipe and Dennis Webb’s The Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, I reckon.
What will I
remember most about this night? Mainly that it seemed so simple. Once the VX was aligned, she didn't miss a fracking go-to.
The Mallincam just worked; the only
adjustment I made all night was changing the exposure time occasionally. It was
all so easy I was amazed at the end of the evening when I toted up my targets
and found I’d done about a hundred DSOs including the nearly 80 Arp galaxies.
The O.A. score thus far? Including this haul, 105 down 234 to go.
“All good
things,” they say, and for me that began as the local time display on SkyTools 3 ticked on toward 1:30 a.m.
The lower part of the field was beginning to be covered with ground fog, and I
figured it would be my turn soon. I was also beginning to feel a little weary. The
dampness was sapping my energy even though I was comparatively warm and dry
under the canopy with the Black Cat catalytic heater running. Even my second
Monster Energy drink of the night failed to fully restore me. I called a halt
to the Arps—I’d got most of those high enough in the sky to fool with by now
anyway—and had some fun.
The funnest
of my fun objects? Probably M33. It was riding high and was just tremendous in
1-minute exposures. I’ve rarely seen it look more like the wild-armed spiral it
is than on this night. Not only that, it was peppered with red HII regions on
my monitor. Its appearance was just magnificent, and is only hinted at in the
single-frame grab here. Just before shutting down, I had a look at little Comet
Brewington, who at least looked like a comet, if not much of a comet. It had
been my plan to stay up for ISON, who would be well up for me by 4:30 a.m. or shortly
thereafter, but that was not to be. There was no doubt we’d be socked in-by
then.
 |
| I've loved M33, the Pinwheel, since I was a sprout... |
At 2:30, low
clouds had indeed closed us down and it was Big Switch Time. I shut everything off,
tucked Mrs. Peel in with her Desert Storm cover, grabbed the laptop, and headed to
the Lodge. There, I spent equal amounts of time watching a dadgum DVD of UFO Hunters and ruminating on observing
projects. I am for sure continuing Operation Arp, but I would like a second and maybe larger project to work
on, something with a little more variety.
I think I have that project, and will tell you-all about it in due course.
As for
DSRSG? We are out of space and time for this edition of the Little Old Blog
from Chaos Manor South, Unk having far exceeded his usual self-imposed verbiage
limit. So, we’ll be back at the Feliciana Retreat Center again next week for
some time under the stars with Dorothy’s new refractor. Since Unk is not known
for his knowledge about or expertise with lens-scopes, it should be “interesting,”
to say the least, muchachos.
Nota bene:
If’n you’ve a mind, you can see lots more pictures from DSRSG 2013 on
Unk’s Facebook page.
Next Time:
Through a glass but not darkly…
Comments:
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Great post Rod!! It sounds like the DSRSG is a great star party. I was supposed to go to the CSPG down CAV way but my doctor said no siree!!! Dag gone doctors. So I spent the dark of the moon here at the home observatory, BHO, Black Hole Observatory. Started working on the H200 a while back and was able to get about 46 more bringing me up to 127. Almost there.
I've been going back into your archives of your blog and have been having a grand time reading the old posts. I really look forward to the new stuff but I still have a ways to go in the archives. I'm up to Jan 2010. Lots of interesting stuff in there.
Keep up the good work.
Scopefreak
I've been going back into your archives of your blog and have been having a grand time reading the old posts. I really look forward to the new stuff but I still have a ways to go in the archives. I'm up to Jan 2010. Lots of interesting stuff in there.
Keep up the good work.
Scopefreak
# posted by 
: 9:36 AM
: 9:36 AM
HI Kevin: Thanks for the kind words, and shore hope to see you Down Chiefland Way one of these days. :-)
Hey. with DLSR attached to Explore Scientific AR102 on the mount Advanced VX, for how long can you expose maximum without star trails? I am planning to buy this mount, but not sure about the length of the long-exposures this mount can allow me.
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# posted by : 1:21 PM
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