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Thunderhead
professor emeritus
Reged: 08/27/05
Posts: 562
Loc: Melbourne, Australia
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Seeing as it was clear on the evening of Jan 4th, I set up my 10" Dob in my putridly hot concrete backyard. I was aware of terrible seeing, but that was to be expected when you have 12 hours of 100 degree sunshine cooking every rooftop and road in Melbourne beforehand. As a check of seeing, I observed the Trapezium at high power and got one of the worst star images I can recall.
To cut a long story short, I was getting eaten alive by mosquitos. This made astronomy nearly impossible, and I tolerated it for a while. I then had enough and grabbed a pair of tracksuit pants and a jumper and endured the 85ºF temps like that. Not fun. The mosquito situation was one of the most wretchedly appalling I had ever experienced. I had 5-6 of the annoying *******s biting me at any one time. However, despite the appalling heat and insect infestation, I did make an observation of NGC 1999 which had me jumping for joy.
Telescope: 10" GSO Dob
Seeing: 2-3/10
Transparency: 3/5
Wind: no
Dew: no
NGC 1999
Started of with 250x, and using averted vision and intent observation I was surprised to find the Bok Globule. I could really only see a notch adjacent the star. I increased power to 357x and the view was similar. I then dropped in the 2.5x powermate and the 5mm LVW which gave 625x. Careful observation, averted vision and patience was the key here, and during 15-20 minutes of observation, I could not only see the dark notch adjacent the star, but the whole T-shape of the Bok globule presented itself momentarily several times during the observation, despite horrid seeing. The crossbar of the 'T' was more difficult (hence the momentary glimpses) than the section next to the star as the brightest section of nebulosity is in the immediate vicinity of the star itself. I was lead to believe that this feature is tiny, but was surprised by how big it loomed in the FOV. Only after glimpsing the 'T' several times did I confirm my sighting.
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SAB - Melbourne, Australia
GSO 10" F5 Dob with flocking & dewshield
12" (304mm) F4.6 truss dob with premium optics
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novbabies
Postmaster
Reged: 06/05/05
Posts: 15678
Loc: Northern Georgia!
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Awesome sketch and report - this is a fascinating object and visullay quite stimulating  !!!
BTW, 625X -  !!!
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Good Seeing!
Mark
Orion 12" XTi f/4.9
VERY old Edmund 6" f/8 reflector
Assorted binoculars
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sgottlieb
sage
Reged: 07/22/07
Posts: 339
Loc: SF Bay area
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Very nice sketch and observation!
You captured most of the details seen in my 18-inch, but here's the full observation on a night of good seeing --
Spectacular view at 565x. The bright mag 10.5 central star appears slightly offset east of center, though this may be an optical affect due to the Bok globule on the west side. The bright, 2' reflection nebula is slightly brighter just following the central star. The irregular dark vacuity is large and detailed at this power and appears anvil-shaped. The base of the anvil is along the western side and oriented N-S. There is a narrow extension to the south that tapers to a wedge. Along the north side, the globule extends to the east and partially wraps around the central star. This was the first time I've seen the globule take on an appearance similar to the well-known HST image.
By the way, just a few arcminutes south of N1999 are two of the "brightest" Herbig-Haro objects, H-H 1 and 2. Still, these are pretty tough objects and are barely non-stellar in my 18-inch. In the image, they're the two small "knots" below N1999 (the closer one is H-H 1).
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Steve Gottlieb
18" f/4.3 Starmaster
Adventures In Deep Space
7500+ NGC/IC Visual Descriptions
NGC/IC Project
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novbabies
Postmaster
Reged: 06/05/05
Posts: 15678
Loc: Northern Georgia!
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Steve, hope you don't mind, converted this most excellent and photo-quality sketch to negative for "eyepiece view" ...
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Good Seeing!
Mark
Orion 12" XTi f/4.9
VERY old Edmund 6" f/8 reflector
Assorted binoculars
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Jeff Young
Post Laureate
Reged: 08/04/05
Posts: 4112
Loc: Ireland
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Nice observation and sketch, Thunderhead. I don't have NGC1999 logged yet. (I wonder if you have to listen to Prince while observing to get it right?)
I might have to try those two Herbig-Haro objects out. I made repeated, dedicated attempts at Gyulbudaghian's Nebula, but never got it. (I had to settle for Hubble's Variable Nebula, but it did make a nice consolation prize.)
-- Jeff.
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Nikon 18x70s / UA Millennium Colorado:
Solarscope SF70 / TV Pronto / AP400QMD Coronado SolarMax40 DS / Bogen 055+3130
APM MC1610 / Tak FC-100 / AP1200GTO Tak Mewlon 250 / AP600EGTO
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