OR: Observing in June on the Modoc Plateau (Part II)
by Steve Gottlieb
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On one of our four days in June on the Modoc Plateau, Jimi and Connie Lowrey, along with my wife Pat and I, took a day trip east from Likely over the South Warner Wilderness area into Surprise Valley, which borders Nevada. The Warner Mountains extend 85 miles in a north-south direction and reach into southeast Oregon. The maximum elevation is nearly 10,000 ft and generally snow covered. Jimi Lowrey was interested in checking out a possible observing site at over 7200 feet. As you head east and climb into the mountains, the road follows the south fork of the Pit River. We took a short detour and stopped at the gorgeous Blue Lake, a popular camping and scenic destination . We continued on to Paterson Campground, where we bumped into Tony and Daphne Hallas, who had just finished a hike. Beyond the campground, we stopped again in Patterson Meadow, a possible observing site that's well into the Black zone, with wide open horizons. Before descending into Surprise Valley, we were treated to a spectacular view of Surprise Valley, which includes two large Alkali lakes that were nearly dry. Once in the valley,
we continued our loop by driving north to Cedarville, then crossed the Warners again to Alturas and headed back south to Likely. That night I continued my quest for merging galaxies
and close pairs. Clouds impinged in the far northern sky but the skies (roughly 21.7 SQM) permitted chasing down a number of challenging systems that I hadn't observed
before. -- Steve Gottlieb |
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NGC 5828 is a fairly faint to moderately bright glow, slightly elongated SW-NE roughly 0.6'x0.45', slightly brighter core. Forms a close pair with Lewis Swift discovered NGC 5828 on June 24, 1887 with his 16-inch Clark refractor in Rochester, New York, though missed the companion. Sometimes the two components are labeled NGC 5828A and 5828B, though it is the brighter northern component that Swift found.
NGC 5846 is a bright, fairly large glow extending ~1.8' diameter, sharply concentrated with a very bright core. The outer halo has a low surface brightness. NGC 5846A is on the south side of the halo [44" from center]. It appeared as a fairly faint compact glow, round, 15" diameter, fairly high surface brightness. A much fainter mag 15.5 star is superimposed 25" N of center. At 200x, NGC 5850 appeared moderately bright and large, slightly elongated, sharply concentrated with a relatively large bright core ~30" in diameter. A very faint bar stretches northwest to southeast from the bright core, with a total diameter of 2'. The bar is easier to see at 260x and is within an extremely faint halo. John Herschel's first observation of NGC 5846 was on May 29, 1821 while being instructed on sweeping techniques by his father. His aunt Caroline recorded the
observation, just as she had done for many years for her brother: "F; R; gmbM; r; appears to have 2 nuclei; south following in the same field is a very small, round nebula." The
second nuclei is most likely
NGC 5851 is fairly faint, very elongated 3:1 SW-NE, ~40"x14", weak concentration. Mag 10.7
Fairly faint, fairly small, slightly elongated SW-NE, 0.5'x0.4', weak concentration. A mag 12 star is 1.9' W. Lewis Swift discovered NGC 5931, along with
NGC 5966 is moderately to fairly bright, oval 4:3 E-W, 1.0'x0.7', broad concentration, with a round bright middle. The location is striking -- just 3.9' SSW of mag
7.5 IC 4563 and 4560 were discovered in 1903 by Stephane Javelle with the 29-inch refractor at the Nice Observatory in France. I'm planning on taking another look to
see if I can pick up
At 260x, NGC 6062 appeared fairly faint to moderately bright, oval 4:3 SSW-NNE, ~36"x27", broad weak concentration but no distinct nucleus. Four brighter stars are
in the field including mag 9.8 Édouard Stephan discovered NGC 6062 on June 20, 1884 with the 31-inch silvered-glass reflector at the Marseille Observatory in France.
At 225x this double system appeared fairly faint, elongated 2:1 WSW-ENE, 24"x12". At 375x, the elongated glow occasionally resolved into two extremely small nuclei
within a common halo. The fainter eastern component (NGC 6076 NED2) is listed in HyperLeda as Albert Marth discovered NGC 6076, along with NGC 6077, in June 1864 with William Lassell's huge 48-inch equatorial speculum reflector on the Mediterranean island of Malta.
IC 1094 (southern component) appeared very faint, very small, round, at most 15" diameter. Forms a very close pair with IC 1094 (northern component). The northern galaxy was very faint, extremely small, quasi-stellar (6" or less). The two nuclei seen on the SDSS image were not resolved. CalTech astronomer Fritz Zwicky called this system ( |
