The Revised AINTNO 100
"AINTNO way she's gonna see that"

Presented by
The Association of Invisible Nebulae and Things Nobody Observes

Association Representatives:
Barbara Wilson & Larry Mitchell
Note: This list is intended for visual observers only. Certificates will be awarded for a successful observation of one object from the list. Prolonged attempts at observation of any of these may be hazardous to your health. Any one unlucky individual of your choosing must verify your observation.

Certificates Awarded
Field of Aintno #55 - HST
1. Lunar Mascon
2. 3 Deg Kelvin Background Radiation
3. Footprints on the moon
4. Chevron formation on Miranda
5. Sunspots on Rigel
6. Venera 7 on Venus
7. Mare Moscoviense
8. Veil Nebula's progenitor star
9. Ithaca Chasma on Tethys
10. Mendenhall's unphotographic nebula
11. Uranian Moons:Cordelia, Ophelia, or Bianca.
12. Cygnus X-1
13. An extrasolar system planet.
14. Oort Cloud.
15. Rings of Uranus
16. Your choice of: Blue arc in galaxy cluster 2242-02 in Aquarius (gravity lens crescent), or blue arc lensed by Abell 370.
17. Spokes in the Cartwheel Galaxy.
18. Algol's companion star.
19. The crater Stickney
20. Visual eruptions of Pele on Io.
21. Geminga.
22. The bridge between Ambartsumian's Knot & NGC 3561.
23. Craters on Titan.
24. Aphrodite Terra or Alpha Regio.
25. Resolve 1989 PB's binary nature.
26. Craters on Mimas.
27. Nemesis Star.
28. The Great Attractor.
29. 12th Moon of Saturn. (Helene)
30. Central Star of the Bug Nebula.
31. Braids in the F Ring of Saturn*
32. The light bridge of Stephan's Quintet and NGC 7331.
33. Globulars of Abell 2151.
34. Colors in the Rho Ophiuchi Star Cloud (IC 4604).
35. Any 29th mag blue galaxy.
36. Snickers (galaxy closest to the Milky Way)
37. 3C273's Jet
38. Hubble Deep Field Galaxy (at least 2).*
39. The lensing galaxy of 0957+56.1 A & B or the astigmatism of the lens.
40. The heliopause.
41. Sagittarius A West.
42. SS433's Jets and W 50
43. Caldera of any lesser Mons on Mars*
44. 7293's outer halo
45. The Galaxy cluster in NGC7293.
46. Any galaxy within 1 degree of the Horsehead.**
47. A star in each eye of M 97.
48. A neutrino
49. Comet Levy-Rudenko
50. .001 second double star at least 10 degrees from the ecliptic
51. Each component of the Castor system.
52. Any 9.5 mag star naked eye.
53. Sample trench from Viking 1 or 2 Lander.
54. A proto star
55. The central Star of Gomez' Hamburger.*
56. S Andromedae
57. The coma of 2060 Chiron
58. Mutual phenomena of all four Galilean moons (from  the east)
59. Hot spot on the accretion disk of a cataclysmic variable.
60. Transit of an asteroid across earth's moon.
61. Sojourner Rover on Mars*
62. Star 235 in Palomar 14.
63. The black hole in M 87, or in NGC 6240.
64. B Cassiopeia.
65. Illuminating star of NGC 3132.
66. The 3 quasars surrounding NGC3842.
67. The dogleg jet of NGC1097.
68. The counterjet in M 87.
69. The protoplantary system around Beta Pictoris.
70. The Egg Nebula's shell.
71. Your choice of: Abell galaxy cluster 2390's blue arclets; or Abell cluster 1689's blue arclets; or Abell 2218's arcs.
72. The companion to V616 Monocerotis, aka: A0620-00.
73. The Magellanic Stream.
74. PSR 1744-24A in Terzan 5.
75. The Black Widow pulsar.
76. The 3nd brightest star in UKS 1*
77. The illuminating star of NGC 3132.
78. Globular 132 in M31.
79. A 37 minute 46 second young moon.
80. Three Supernovae simultaneously in one galaxy.
81. Gliese 569B
82. Einstein's Ring: MG 1131 +0456
83. Vernal Equinox
84. Pioneer 10
85. Resolve Huchra's Lens (Einstein's Cross)(All 4)
86. A naked eye Messier Marathon.(At least 100)
87. Any supernova in the central parsec of a Seyfert galaxy.
88. The Jovian Aurorae.
89. Io sulphur torus.
90. Observe 45 galaxies in the Corona Borealis Cluster.*
91. Planetary Nebulae in M 81.
92. Planet X.
93. Sun glint off of Voyager 1.
94. Dr. Frank's microcomets.
95. Optical counterpart of any gamma burst. (No space junk, please.)**
96. Dactyl*
97. Observe simultaneous Aurora Borealis and Australis from 40ΓΈ Latitude north OR south.
98. Simultaneous Solar transits of Mercury and Venus.
99. Observe any two asteroids colliding.
100. The arrow that points to Pluto **

* Revised
** Certificate already claimed. No second certificate will be awarded.

Certificates Awarded

AINTNO #95 - Retired by Riku Henriksson and Markus Tuukkanen

Hey, Barbara

I don't know if you heard already, but last night Markus Tuukkanen and I managed to observe the optical afterglow of gamma ray burst GRB030329 visually. It's located in Leo and it was at the moment of magnitude 14.2. As there's entry 95: "Optical counterpart of any gamma burst. (No space junk, please.)" in AINTNO catalogue I believe you should seriously consider granting us the coveted AINTNO certificate.
Riku Henriksson

Riku:
The Aintno Committee has proudly accepted your observation of Aintno #95 "Optical counterpart of any gamma burst. (No space junk, please.)" See reply from Larry Mitchell enclosed. Larry says you have to come to TSP to get the certificate. Where we will give you the Aintno Certificate #5.
I am inclined to make you a virtual Aintno Certificate until you can come to receive the real one. Here is what you do: Turn your computer power saving function on. Go into standby mode. Let screen go black. Stare at screen with averted vision. This is a simulated Aintno Certificate!
Seriously, send me your address. Will create and mail this "dubious document" to you and Markus. Congratulations for being only 5/6th people in the world to qualify for the "coveted" (your words) AINTNO. And in all seriousness, you guys did a heck of a job. I am just sorry I wasn't there to see it.
Barbara Wilson
Aintno Committee

And Larry's reply:
Barbara,
This truly is a significant feat and certainly worth a piece of black paper - They have to come get it however...... TSP is just around the corner. We also don't know what Mr. O'Meara has up his sleeve yet? The Aintno just goes on and on and on and on and on and onandonandonandonandon.....WOW!!!
Larry

Honorable Mentions go to Tim Parson of the Minnesota Astronomical Society and Tom Bakowski of the Buffalo Astronomical Association, who also submitted observations of Aintno #95.

AINTNO #46 - Retired by Tim Parson

We have awarded AINTNO Certificate #4 for object #46 (any galaxy within one degree of the Horsehead) to Tim Parson of the Minnesota Astronomical Society at the 2002 Texas Star Party. Tim successfully observed Mac galaxy 0538-0223 43.6' away from the Horsehead. I have visually confirmed his observation in both my 20" and in a 13.1" telescope from West Texas. Larry and I are very pleased to award this to Tim as it was the first real AINTNO to fall without trickery, a real observation with an amateur size telescope. Here is Tim's message about his observation:

Dear AINTNO Representatives:

In the fall of 1999, I once again put the AINTNO list under a microscope and found that #46 (from the revised list) seemed to be a little bit suspicious. It read: "Any galaxy within 1 degree of the Horsehead", so right away I booted up Megastar and found out that Larry listed three Mac galaxys within one degree of the Horsehead:

Mac galaxy 0540-0240 15.0' away from the Horsehead in a P.A. of 211.2 degrees at R.A. 05 40 22.5 DEC. -02 40 52
Mac galaxy 0538-0233 36.5' away from the Horsehead in a P.A. of 261.4 degrees at R.A. 05 38 29.3 Dec. -02 33 28
Mac galaxy 0538-0223 43.6' away from the Horsehead in a P.A. of 275.4 degrees at R.A. 05 38 00.0 Dec. -02 23 51

Looking at the DSS images, Mac galaxy 0540-0240 seemed to be nonexistent and therefore almost impossible to observe. Mac galaxy 0538-0233 could be observed with a fairly large telescope under dark skies. The bright stars to the southeast will hamper the view a bit, but I still think it's doable. Mac galaxy 0538-0223 offered the biggest surprise. This galaxy reminded me of some faint NGC galaxy with a small bright core and faint arms.

The galaxy seemed so bright, in fact that I attempted it in my little 14.5" telescope from home (I live 25 miles north northeast of the Twin Cities). The first two times I tried for it at home I came away empty handed at 274x. I tried for it one more time on 10/08/99 armed with a new eyepiece, a Takahashi LE 5mm (384x). I bought this eyepiece over all other eyepieces after only one view through Barbara Wilson's 20" telescope at the 1999 Texas Star Party. I was looking at Pal 5 when the whole field came alive with a faint sprinkling of stars over the face of this faint globular cluster. It was almost like a religious experience! Thank you, Barbara!

The eyepiece really did the trick because when I put it in I was able to see a very faint glow of light just to the northeast of a grouping of 5 or 6 stars of about 14.7 to 15.7 magnitude. The galaxy could at times be held with averted vision and sometimes with an elongated shape. This would have to be one of the brighter Mac galaxies I've seen!

Brian Skiff and Tom Polakis share AINTNO certificate #1/2.

Steve O'Meara has AINTNO certificate #1 for his observation of the G Ring of Saturn (original AINTNO object 31 now revised to "Braids in the F Ring of Saturn") Stephen said he observed the G Ring during the ring plane crossing of Saturn during 1995 with the 36? Lick Observatory Refractor.

Amelia Goldberg has AINTNO Certificate #2.5 for object #100: the arrow that points to Pluto

Steve O"Meara has AINTNO Certificate #3 for "an elliptical galaxy seen naked eye" (object #54 on the Original AINTNO list now revised by "any protostar") We only gave him 1/2 a certificate because of our argument that Centaurus A is not truly a "naked eye elliptical". See message from Steve below:

From: Stephen James OMeara
To: Barbara Wilson
Nice job. How fun! I'm glad to see the list hasn't changed all that much...so be prepared, because I "aim to claim" another AINTNO; by the way, you forgot to mention that I too have an AINTNO 1/2 certificate for my naked-eye sighting of Centaurus A -- that naked-eye elliptical. :-)