“The skies on our first night did not disappoint. Armed with the group’s 30-inch f/4.4 Starmaster Dobsonian reflector and a computer-controlled database, we went after dozens of deep-sky objects.”
After flying from Milwaukee to Denver to Tucson, Senior Editor Michael Bakich and I arrived at the eastern arm of the Arizona Sky Village (ASV) yesterday and immediately began an on-the-spot star party with a group of ASV owners. Instead of going to the main ASV site near Portal, Arizona, however, we strayed about 20 miles away to the site’s eastern branch, dubbed Rancho Hidalgo, where a large development operation is underway.
Editor's note: Check out our gallery of images from Dave and Michael's trip to Arizona Sky Village.
“This is going to be a center for astronomy, archaeology, horseback riding, enjoying the mines and caves in the area, and one of the best skies on Earth,” says ASV developer Gene Turner, our host. The eastern site, where dozens of amateur astronomers already have purchased land and will build houses with observatories, lies just across the New Mexico border near Animus, at about 31° north latitude, at an elevation of about 4,600 feet.
Incidentally, our arrival was delayed by about 2 hours by stalled traffic on Interstate 10 heading east from Tucson. We couldn’t for the life of us imagine how we could be at a dead stop on this stretch of highway. Finally, we inched along, were merged into one lane, and came upon a small pass where the grass on both sides of the highway had freshly burned. We kept rolling slowly past police and came upon the completely burned-out wreckage of a semi truck that was filled with lettuce and/or cabbage, burned and spilled all over one lane of the highway. It was an incredible spectacle and must have been an unbelievable, fiery wreck — we only hope the driver is OK.
The skies on our first night did not disappoint. Armed with the group’s 30-inch f/4.4 Starmaster Dobsonian reflector (pictured above) and a computer-controlled database, we went after dozens of deep-sky objects. The sky was inky black and awash with stars; you know it’s a premier observing site because the Milky Way appears unusually rich from the gray-blue light of countless faint stars, giving it a rich velvety appearance you simply don’t see in most places. And the dark rifts were starkly chiseled into the glowing band in mind-numbing detail.
Our observing group this night consisted of Gene, Michael, myself, Stewart Wilson, and Adam and Tracy Clayson. Stewart is a former 747 pilot who flew commercially for many years for TWA and a longtime amateur astronomer. In fact, he was the discoverer of Comet Wilson-Hubbard (1961 V) in 1961. He discovered the comet while piloting a Pan Am 707 en route from Honolulu to Portland! The Claysons run a freight staffing company in Toronto. All of us are avid deep-sky viewers, and we heated up that 30-inch scope like there was no tomorrow.
Some of the first night’s most memorable objects were planetary nebulae. After warming up on the Ring Nebula (M57) and seeing a razor-sharp image of the nebula, its faint outer shell, the central star, and surface brightness irregularities along the rim, we kept on our nebular kick. The next planetary was a great favorite of mine, NGC 6781 in Aquila (pictured at left, editor's note: image displayed is not from this observing session) — a big, faint ring with illuminated gas throughout. The diminutive NGC 6905 in Delphinus came next, a beautiful little spot of nebulosity surrounded by bright stars in a rich field. The nice thing with a 30-inch scope is that you’re not really limited in what you can go after. With NGC 6905, we saw the asymmetrical glow of the outer nebulosity encapsulating the round, bright shell. Everything looks pretty much like a photo without the color.
Some of the many objects that stuck out during this night included NGC 1, NGC 7006, M2, NGC 7008, and the Helix Nebula. NGC 1, a spiral galaxy in Pegasus, is an “average Joe” galaxy that is famous, of course, for being the first object listed in the New General Catalogue. I was really astonished by our view of the distant globular cluster NGC 7006 in Delphinus, which lies 135,000 light-years away. We saw a bright spot of the cluster’s center but also, amazingly, a well-resolved cloud of minute stars spread across it. Resolving this cluster was impressive. By contrast, the bright globular M2 appeared like a beehive of rich stars resolved cleanly straight across its face.
If you’re not familiar with NGC 7008, a train-wreck planetary in Cygnus, take a look at the photo on the right (editor's note: image displayed is not from this observing session). We saw it with quasi-photographic caliber: bright stars lie right off its edge, and the disk is unevenly illuminated. There’s an easily visible dark area cutting into the center of the nebula and also a bright arc of nebulosity that appears roughly C-shaped. All is set in a very rich star field. It’s a stunning sight. We observed many more objects, but I’ll simply say that the Helix Nebula in Aquarius was breathtaking: a photo-like view of a glowing, green-white disk in which you could easily see the corkscrew-like form of the brightest parts.
Today we’re going to set off on some adventures from Rancho Hidalgo, and tonight we’re going to go after some increasingly weird and obscure deep-sky objects. I’ll keep you posted on the next set of observations!