Hickson Hunting at Indian Trail Spring
By Matt Vartanian
Approximately 25 RCA members gathered at the OSP site on September 26th to kick off the second annual RCA star party at Indian Trail Spring. After the previous month’s OSP we were ecstatic to find the area had mostly cleared of forest fire smoke. And we received nearly two extra hours of darkness compared with the prior month.
Earlier in the year I began the Galaxy Groups and Clusters observing program which includes the Hickson compact galaxy groups catalog. These were my main observing targets for the star party. The Hicksons are extremely faint objects that really benefit from dark and transparent skies like those at the ITS site.
My first target Friday night was a Hickson galaxy group called
Seyfert’s Sextet. The Sextet is not as well known as Stephan’s Quintet, and I found
out why. I starhopped to the right location
and saw nothing but a few stars. I scanned the
surrounding area a bit with no luck. Checking
my finder chart I confirmed that I was in the right place so I bumped up the magnification
to 250x. Some of these compact groups are very
small and become easier to see under higher magnification.
After 30 minutes of searching I had been skunked on the first object of the
night. And this is an object that even has a
nickname! For a moment I wondered if the
galaxy groups and clusters observing program was simply beyond the combined abilities of
me and my 16” scope. But that thought
quickly evaporated, I was having too much fun! The
30 minutes of hunting was a thrill even with no reward at the end. Besides, I knew I would find it eventually. So onward!
I found my next Hickson group in a couple of minutes and felt redeemed. Three galaxies were visible immediately; I quickly detected another with averted vision. It took a while but finally a fifth galaxy made its entrance into the image, just barely at the edge of my perception. I like to try to imagine the scale of the objects I’m observing but I never know if my mind can truly comprehend such things. The immensity of scale that the galaxy groups possess holds much of the appeal for me. I sketched the view in my sketchbook to later compare against charts. Moving on I found and sketched three more Hickson groups then decided it was time for a break. I had a quick cup of coffee then made a diversion from galaxy groups to Jones 1, a large planetary nebula in Pegasus. It showed up best with an OIII filter at around 125x as a broken ring with a half dozen faint stars sprinkled across its face.
I continued with four more Hicksons in the
Cetus/Eridanus area and was ready to call it quits. After
a night of retina busting observations I finished with M42/M43 in Orion, now fairly high
in the sky. Spectacular bluish green smoke
studded with faint stars, a real treat for the eyes and a great way to end the first
night!
Saturday afternoon I prepared myself by doing some research on Seyfert’s Sextet. I reviewed the star field and how big the group should appear in my eyepiece. I was as ready as I could be. Seyfert’s Sextet is in Serpens and sets early this time of year so it was my first target. I starhopped once again to the now familiar location and used moderate power. There it was! It was even more of a treat after the previous night’s failure. Indeed the sextet was faint, and so compact that the individual galaxies overlap one another.
I spent a lot of Saturday night on Hickson
groups and Abell Clusters in the Andromeda/Pegasus area.
The Abell clusters are so big that they span multiple eyepiece views even at
low powers and so are difficult to sketch. I
had not considered this factor but luckily I had printed out DSS images of these clusters
so I used the printouts as a sort of roadmap, meandering through the galaxy field checking
off my observations as I went. Saturday
night’s diversion was a planetary nebula called Pease 1. The most interesting thing about this object is
that it is in globular cluster M15. Not
superimposed on M15, but an actual planetary nebula within the globular cluster. To find it you have to star hop within the globular! It didn’t
sound too easy, but surprisingly the star hop was not as difficult as I had expected. Seeing the planetary nebula was a different story
altogether. After a lot of straining, changing
magnification and a variety of blink test gymnastics, I finally conceded the match. I did not see Pease 1 that night, but I was encouraged and I will be
attempting it again. Next time I’ll
figure out a way to more easily do the blink test, and hope for steadier skies. A quick look at Saturn concluded the weekend, and
what an exhausting two nights it was!