Caldwell Club Observing

This last weekend, I finally put the finishing touches on my astronomy shed in the Texas hill country. I even had a few minutes to sit down and plan an observing night. There is a special pleasure in opening books, and beginning to find a way to work through a major list of objects.

The Caldwell list is 109 objects chosen by Patrick Moore, the British observer par excelence. It's only been 15 years since he formulated the list, but it has become quite popular in the astronomy groups I frequent. Its about the same spirit as the Messier list - lots of famous objects, but was chosen to be excellent targets instead of comet imposters - as Messier intended. The Astronomical League rules on this club are simple and clear. Observe 70 of the 109 objects and you get a certificate. Observe all 109 and you get another pin. The catch is that to get objects 80 - 109 you just about have to be south of the US. South America or Australia would do quite nicely!

Because Moore chose these objects on purpose, it would seem appropriate to to spend some time figuring out why they were chosen and what is interesting about them. And the AL makes that part of the club as well. Descriptions of the object should be written so that "the detail should be sufficient to convince your society's awards coordinator that you did in fact expend the time and effort to find and, hopefully, appreciate the reason that Sir Patrick selected the object for a place of honor on his list."

I began the process with Steve O'Meara's excellent book about the Caldwell List in hand. Steve does a great job of essay on each object, and this makes it much easier to quickly learn about the marvel or mystery of the object in hand. So far, I have not found it possible to read the entry on each object while observing. Some of that is done beforehand, and some is done afterward.

Though a number of the objects on the Caldwell list are also on the Herschel list, I decided to make fresh observations for this club. For one thing, it is rewarding to go back to an object seen in the past and see it with fresh (and more experienced) eyes. For another, I intend to write longer descriptions of the Caldwell objects than I did when I worked through most of the Herschel List.

For my first night, I star hopped through about a dozen objects. Several, like the Helix Nebula and the milkweed seed galaxy were real "wow" experiences. I had not seen either of these in any other list I have worked through. Each was very beautiful in its own special way.

So now it's time to reduce my recorded observations from that night to the log and start planning for this coming weekend.