Well, that was fun. I just confirmed that I have now observed all the objects on the Herschel 400 list.
Over the weekend, I was able to get two long observing sessions in at the Frio Cielo starfield. Both sessions started at about 90 degrees at 945 PM. On Friday afternoon, it had gotten up to 105F at the ranch. On Saturday it reached 107F. That weather was a "polar opposite" to the sessions at the end of January and March that both got into the teens by morning. I remember my fingers getting very stiff and painful on those nights. This weekend, I only had to deal with an incessant wind.
My single spaced, typewritten log of the objects is 47 pages long. In creating that log over the last two years (I began at Garner State Park in June of 2009) I have learned a LOT about star hopping and have been impressed, over and over, how huge cosmos is. The H400 contains hundreds of galaxies. Some so tightly spaced that there are more galaxies than foreground stars. Each of those galaxies contains in the neighborhood of 100 million to a trillion stars.
Every item was found with my trusty combination of Telrad, finder scope and telescope. All were found by star hopping. Most of the objects were seen with the 16 inch Meade mirror, though the design of that telescope changed three times during length of this project. I used the wonderful Stephen O'Meara H400 book to be able to have a good photo and a rational order for seeing the objects. I believe it is the best tool there is for finding the objects.
Like I said, all objects were found by star hopping. In the beginning, I used the star hopping diagrams of O'Meara's book. For the last half of the list, I used an iPad with StarmapHD, a great program by Frederic Descamps. It was much easier for me to star hop with this tool than with any other atlas or set of diagrams.
My thanks to SAAA club members who have followed my progress through this list. For those of you who listened for hours as I mumbled into my voice recorder, paying scarce attention to your companionship, I apologize. That goes double for Diane who bore most of that concentration, and also to Matt who was often with me as I was working my way through the list. He is good! On several occasions, we would race to an obscure object by star hopping, and he would find it first.
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Spending the night outdoors to look at the constellations or see objects through a telescope is one of the joys of life. I also enjoy writing about my astronomy ideas and observing sessions. I have spent a lot of time outdoors, so spending nights in some dark field under the sky is like being at home. Actually it is being at home.
