8 April – blog 1 of 3
Back to the Drôme. Same region, different house: Rémuzat this time, across the valley from Cornillac that I visited twice before.
This trip, I split the inbound leg in two. A 7 hour drive to a hotel north of Lyon on the first day, with a stop in Luxemburg for gas, leaving only 3 hours to go the next day. Doing so guarantees a daytime arrival, which is all the more convenient when visiting a new location. Also, if I were to make the trip in one 10+ hour stretch, that would be too fatiguing to even think of setting up the first night.
Traffic was cooperating on both days and after a short stop in Crest for supplies, only one hour remained until arrival in Rémuzat. Like the house in Cornillac, the much smaller gîte I was to spend the week in is an old sheep shed converted to a holiday home. Contrary to Cornillac, this location is close enough to the village for a decent cellphone connection. That allowed me to spam the world with my astronomical and not-so-astronomical endeavours througout the week.
Moonwise, this week was to be less than optimal. Only 1 hour 20 minutes of complete darkness on the day of arrival, gradually increasing the following nights. But what are you going to do when that’s the only week the house is available, or for that matter, any suitable location in this region..?
Weatherwise the forecasts were sublime. All apps uniformly promoted clear skies for the week. Time would tell how trustworthy that information was to be.
The unpaved, winding road leading from the village to the gîte required some helmsmanship in a car loaded to the brim with astrogear, but I made it up the mountain in one piece. Time to install, setup and tune.
With the scope set on its pedestal and plenty of time remaining before darkness, I surveyed the immediate surroundings of the gîte. Behind the gîte is an engraved slab that is a memorial to the founder of this dwelling. To the east are the mountains I have become familiar with during my two preceding visits to this region. Few mountains to the north and south. To the west a sheer cliff up to about 30 degrees in elevation.
This area is a favorite for hikers and the cliff’s precipice, also reachable by a 20 minute car drive, is popular with wildlife photographers thanks to the vultures that inhabit the area. A site I was sure to visit in the days ahead.
As the skies darkened and the first star popped out, I drift aligned the mount. With the alignment set and time to spare before the end of astronomical twilight, I checked my collimation. Now, I have made more than one trip like this when, despite countless speed bumps, endless hairpin turns and stretches over unpaved roads, the optics’ collimation has remained spot on. Not this time around: I mean, there’s poor collimation and then there’s… well… this. Forget close-to-concentric rings, or even a donut. What a mess. So off came the dew cap, in came the 5mm eyepiece, and with Regulus centered I tweaked Bob’s knobs for a good 10 minutes until all was well again. From there, towards Hydra for a few STF doubles in the time that remained before complete darkness.
Already the SQM measured a healthy 21.29. On my new meter, that was. As I noted back in 2021, my previous SQM-L started to produce wonky readings. Sites like this are 21+ any time. When I measured meager 20.5 or lower readings from this same area, then numbers in the 16’s from the Ardennes, it left no doubt the thing was bent. For a while it produced representative readings whenever the battery was replaced and a reading was take immediately after, but that soon ceased to be a solution, too. Having tried everything to fix it, up to and including the three foot drop, I declared it a goner. It served me well though, since 2008, but it was time for a replacement.
To start the session, eight doubles in Hydra passed my Naglers. STF1210 was easily the best with a clearly grey-blue hue of the secondary.
16mm Nagler T5: ABC split.A is bright white, B is grey-blueish, quite a distinct color, C is wide, faint and colorless.1/3 FoV to the NW is a white mag. 7.5 star (SAO116544).9mm Nagler T6: Using this magnification B is clearly grey-blue, A and B are distinctly contrasting. A beautiful double.
With doubles in the bag came the end of astronomical twilight and with that a phenomenon that is no stranger to mountainous regions. With the atmosphere cooling down fast and creating significant temperature deltas, the winds picked up. Not just a little, but pretty darn strong. Too strong at least to allow observations, even with the dew cap removed. I had no to choice but to sit it out, cutting a very short session even shorter.
When the winds vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, only half an hour was left until Moonrise. I spent what little time was left to observe faint fuzzies in Leo Minor. Galaxies I had yet to observe or that I did observe before, but not from a dark location.
To determine my targets I use – you guessed it – AstroPlanner. The application highlights objects in a planfile for which an observation was logged and allows a different color to be user specified, for example for observations from sites that can be considered as ‘dark’. This taught me that, using CSOG’s 12-14″ planfile, I had 22 galaxies and galaxy groups left to (re)observe in LMi: objects highlighted in yellow were only observed only from a ‘non-dark’ site, objects highlighted in green were observed from a dark site, object not highlighted had yet to grace my optics.
First galaxy back in the eyepiece was NGC2859. The suddenly brighter core jumped out, including a notably bright nucleus. The faint outer regions remained out of reach of my aperture.
A NNW-SSE elongated, bright glow that is suddenly brighter in a round core with a bright nucleus that is clearly visible without AV. With AV the galaxy is more elongated and the round core is slightly larger and notably bright.1/4 FoV to the WNW is a bright white-yellow mag. 8 star (SAO61446).
Next was IC2497. A faint round glow, at the limit of visibility and only subtly brighter in the middle with use of averted vision. “Hanny’s Voorwerp” due south was not visible.
NGC2955 was better, sporting an elongated core.
A not-too-faint, NNW-SSE elongated glow, quite suddenly brighter in a core that is slightly elongated in the same direction. With AV the core and the galaxy overall are more elongated and the core brightens more gradually.To the west is a mag. 13 star.
Best of the session was NGC3003 – the “Little Whale Galaxy”. Indeed reminiscent of NGC4631 in Canes Venatici, albeit considerably smaller and much fainter. The small knot that is west-southwest of the brighter, irregular, offset core of the galaxy sometimes seemed to jump into view but I could not hold it.
Quite a large, clearly ENE-WSW elongated glow, not very bright. Brighter in quite a large core that is clearly irregular with use of AV, that is slightly ENE of the middle and that is brightest WSW of the middle (of the brighter core). The core is thereby brightest in the middle of the galaxy as a whole. The galaxy gradually faints towards the WSW and faints more suddenly on the ENE side. A nice galaxy.With AV the HII region WSW of the middle sometimes seems to jump into view but can not be held.
Although well into darkness, I noted the SQM values did not increase. The nearly full Moon that was to raise its head over the horizon in about twenty minutes was a factor, for sure, but there definitely was something else contributing and it was not man-made either: zodiacal light. Towering upwards from behind the cliff in the east, stretching into the eastern parts of Gemini and reaching up to Castor & Pollux. Quite a sight.
NGC3126, although faint, revealed its clearly elongated shape along with a core and bright nucleus.
A NW-SE clearly very elongated streak, gradually brighter in the middle and quite suddenly brighter in a small core that is elongated in the same direction. The bright nucleus is visible without AV. With AV the galaxy is more elongated and the brighter core is easer to distinguish. A nice, very elongated shape.
Final DSO was NGC3254. It too is very elongated but with averted vision its core appeared to be slightly offset.
A NE-SW clearly very elongated streak, quite suddenly brighter in a small core that is elongated in the same direction with a bright nucleus that is visible without AV. The galaxy suddenly faints towards the SW and faints more gradually towards the NE. With AV it is clear that the brighter core is slightly SW of the middle.To the ENE are two white mag. 9.5 stars aligned SE to NW.
As the pillar of zodiacal light became ever shorter in the west, it was replaced by the light of the approaching Moon in the east.
With this session being so short due to winds and the early Moonrise, I took advantage of the Moon remaining tucked behind the mountains in the east to target a few more double stars, in Sextans. Despite it being past Moonrise, the skies’ darkness still measured above 20.5, which is better than my backyard (where I observe most of my doubles) will ever get.
6 More STF’s in Sextans. The best being STF1404 and 1440, both providing for clearly contrasting colors.
AB split. Quite a nice double.A is yellowish, B is white-grey, quite clearly contrasting.
16mm Nagler T5: AB split. A beautiful double.A is bright white, B is light-blueish, a subtle blueish hue.9mm Nagler T6: Using this magnification the light blue hue of B is much clearer that it is with 16mm., clearly contrasting.
With half an hour to go until midnight, the Moon peeked its head over a ridgeline. A short session and not too many observations logged, but still a week to go in this gorgeous part of France.
Observations
15 double stars14 galaxies & galaxy groupsTotal: 29 observationsFirst time observations: 19 objects
Details of the objects observed in this session are in the table below.
click here for my observing log
to top of table
