Brotherhood of the Faint Fuzzies

Little Blair Valley

We're not sure what scared people away last night: the fact that it was the Labor Day weekend, that we had a sudden heat wave and the desert temperatures were in the 100s, or that the Clear Sky Chart indicated "only" average seeing (we are very spoiled around here). There were only four of us, so I made a decision to not unpack my Obsession, and to enjoy Debbie's 20".

I'm slowly learning that LBV is always full of surprises, and often exceeds expectations, as it did last night. It was warm, but not hot. In fact, because the air temperature didn't fall quickly, there was not problem with the mirror cooling. Seeing was on the high end of "average" and with 5% humidity, the skies were dark and very transparent.

Perhaps because it was so balmy, none of us were driven to check off a large list of objects. We were all enjoying the evening. We were the Brotherhood of the Faint Fuzzies: three of us had Dark Skies Apparel hooded vests and two of us had copies of Alvin Huey's Hickson Group Observer's Guide. With sufficient aperture...

We took time to compare filters. Three variations of an OIII: an old Lumicon, my new Astronomik, and a "Narrow Band Filter" that is somewhere between an OIII and UHC. The surprising thing is that all three had their redeeming features; no one popped out as "the winner." However, the Astronomik does have the advantage of not turning stars red, as the Lumicon does. Rather, it brings out more of the OIII green.

I also purchased Astronomik's H-ß filter. The difference between it and Lumicon's H-ß is remarkable (Astronomik provides much nicer contrast and brighter stars), but it wasn't enough to reveal the nebulosity in the Cocoon Nebula. I have been trying for 20 years. While I can detect a slight haze, nothing pops out as a defined nebula. Probably time to move on to new challenges.

Hickson 10

Alvin Huey points out that the Hickson Groups really aren't a catalog, but a research list that was selected based on compactness and magnitude range. Of the tens of thousands of galaxies available to the amateur, these groups are only occasionally of real aesthetic interest, but they do represent a challenge. Again, Alvin observes that, 'They present a challenge for the intermediate and advanced observer...' Several of them, in particular "Stephan's Quintet" (HCG 90), "Seyfert's Sextet" (HCG 79), and "The Box" (HCG 61), are the right combination of challenge and interest. Many of them are just plain small, obscure, and nearly impossible to detect!

Hickson 10 in Andromeda was exactly the kind of challenge a member of the Brotherhood of the Faint Fuzzies enjoys. Two of the galaxies, A & B, are easily seen. C is fainter and much smaller, but easily identified, although it appears to be an elliptical because all you see is the core. D is what made it all worthwhile. Without knowing it was there, we would have passed it by: it is very small and very faint. Careful examination at first gave the hint that something was there, and then – as it popped in and out due to the seeing – it was definitely there, and finally we could see that it was elongated. This is where the hood on our Dark Skies Apparel vests really demonstrated their utility: by darkening the head at the eyepiece, one got a real sense of the group.