I have been searching for a very dark site in Alabama for a few years now. My first major break through was when I discovered the light pollution maps online. According to them, there were some very dark sites in southwestern Alabama, as well as a narrow streak of black skies that curves through southern-central Alabama and all the way down to the Florida state line. However, the major roadblock to going these places was always going to be where to set up. Another problem was in order to find out how dark they really are, you have to drive out there and sacrifice an otherwise great night for observing.
About three or four weeks ago, I noticed while looking at the clear sky clock page for Alabama that there was a clear sky clock of Conecuh National forest. According to the light pollution maps, this was a dark sky paradise. I called up a Ranger from their park office there, and he said that they DID have some open areas where a telescope could be used, the forest was open all year round, and no permit or pass was required to use it. He did however suggest that I inform him when and where I will be observing within the forest, and also suggested I come down on a week day to get guidance to where these open areas are (which I would have a hard time doing).
While I was talking with Tom (the same guy who is building my next scope), he expressed interest in checking out observing sites within Conecuh National Forest with me. We initially planned a trip down last weekend, but severe thunderstorms rolled through. However, from the start of last week, forcasts were looking good for this weekend.
Saturday dawned a very hazy, but clear day. I left my house at around 2:30 and headed to Tom’s house near Montgomery, Alabama. By this time, things were looking iffy for the night. Cumulous were covering the sky, but these did not worry me, as they always burn off right before sunset. What was worrisome was the high clouds I was starting to see behind them, and the extreme amout of haze that was building up, turning the sky a whitish-blue in between clouds. However, we went anyway, leaving Tom’s house sometime after 4.
We finally arrived in the vicinity of the forest around 6:45. We had arrived way too late to get help from anybody that we could think of. We started to drive around, looking for an open area. But… forests are forests after all, and after about a half hour of searching, we had only found one spot. The spot didn’t have a grassy ground- just pine needles, seedling trees, and dirt.
It was dusk and Tom decided to keep on looking for a better spot. We drove on down to the Escambia County Public Lake, which was actually within the western borders of the forest. There we found three or four fishermen getting ready to leave for the night. Upon questioning them, an old haggard guy stepped forward and said he knew of some nearby spots. He jumped into his car and took off, and we sped after him. A little ways down the dirt road he stopped and showed us an area to the side of the road. He said they had just cleared it out and buried a pipeline there. We got back in the car and followed him a little ways further to another cleared out area, but when I inspected it, it turned out somewhat swampy. After thanking the old guy (he told us he had a telescope and would put out the lights around his house by shining spotlights on them), we drove back to the site along the side of the road where the pipe had been buried. We drove up a little ways and started to set up.
It was nearly completely dark when I finished setting up. The sky darkness was excellent- somewhere around limiting magnitude 6.5, and this dark on a hazy night! The first object I observed was M101- an excellent guide to sky darkness. While it wasn’t quite what I remember the galaxy being in Nebraska, it was still excellent, very distinctly showing its chaotic spiral arm system. Several HII regions were visible.
Next, I moved over to Copeland’s Septet, which I had printed off an image from the POSS of. I did this in order to try and find the eighth (PGC 36010) and ninth (anonymous?) members of the group. When I got to my target, despite all seven of the brighter members were visible. At the high magnification that I was using (roughly 410X), I was only able to keep the area of sky that contained the 8th and 9th members in the field of view for a short period of time. Tracking would have helped tremendously. I was only able to pick up hints of the 8th member, right on the threshold of visibility, while the ninth member remained invisible.
Next, Tom requested Leo I. Putting the scope north or Regulus, I immediately picked it up. It was noticeably easier to acquire than at my normal dark sky site. I found the view was best with the 19mm Panoptic (110X).
Feeling like some eye candy, I turned the scope to NGC 4485 and NGC 4490, an amazingly beautiful pair of interacting galaxies in Canes Venatici. Amazingly, Tom acted as if he had never seen this pair before. A spiral arm of 4490 was clearly seen, warped downward towards the tear-drop shaped 4485.
Moving north to NGC 4449, I brought this irregular galaxy into our gaze for even more eye candy. Tom also didn’t remember seeing this one before, so he got his first view of this excellent galaxy. At 230X (9mm Nagler) several knots were visible across the face of the galaxy, with one being extremely prominent. Putting the OIII in, the galaxy was dimmed considerably, but the knots appeared to maintain their previous brightness.
Next I hit M106. This is one of the better messier galaxies in my opinion, and its appearance through the eyepiece this night backed me up. At 230X, its structure, broad brightening in its spiral disk, was clearly visible. The disk also appeared to be mottled to a degree. Next, I observed several fainter nearby galaxies around M106, including NGC 4248, NGC 4231, NGC 4232, NGC 4226, and NGC 4217. Of these, NGC 4217 was the most interesting, appearing as a fairly low surface brightness edge on galaxy with hints of a dust lane.
Next, I starhopped to several very nice, nearby, edge-on spirals. It was amazing the number of very nice edge on spirals in this region! In the order in which I observed them, they are: NGC 4144, NGC 4096 (clumpy in appearance), NGC 4010, NGC 4001 (not an edge on- a magnitude 15.3 small round galaxy), NGC 4100 (stellar core, mottled appearance), NGC 4088 (very nice and interesting galaxy), NGC 4085, NGC 4157, and NGC 4026 (very bright core and extensions). The best of all these was NGC 4088. It displayed a inner, oval- like structre surrounding the core. Through this oval structure, slowly curving spiral arms were stretched, making a squashed S-shape.
Next, I took another look at Copelands septet. I was once again using the 5mm Pentax. As soon as Tom stepped up to the eyepiece, he thought he saw the eighth member, but after that, was unsure. I tried an tried for about 20 minutes, and am pretty sure I picked it up on the extreme limits of visibility once or twice.
After this, I turned to M101 for some more eye candy. Pumping up the power with the 9mm Nagler, the spiral arms and stellar associations/nebulae in the arms stood out very well. Craving more eye candy, I took a look at M51 with the 7mm Nagler (290X). The spiral structure was breathtaking, and the arms appeared very clumpy.
Next, I went back to the area in Canes Venatici/Ursa Major where I had seen all the nice edge on galaxies earlier. There, I observed NGC 3949, NGC 3928, NGC 3893 (very nice, mottled face on spiral), NGC 3896, NGC 3906, NGC 3877 (another bright edge-on), NGC 3811, NGC 3769, NGC 3769A, NGC 3726, NGC 3675, NGC 3938, and NGC 4013 (a very bright, edge on spiral with possible dust lane).
While I was observing those galaxies, Tom went into the car and started taking a nap (he had been awake since 5:00AM). I moved the scope up to Corona Borealis, near zenith, and zeroed in on the Corona cluster, (Abell 2065) 1.5 billion light years away. My observations of the 7 main bright members pretty much matched my observations of the cluster I had made back in March; however, I did add one more galaxy to my list of observed galaxies in the cluster, MCG+05-36-023, a few arc minutes to the east of the main group of galaxies.
After spending maybe another 20 minutes gazing across 1.5 billion light years at incredibly faint fuzzies, I needed another break for eye candy, and observed M13 and M92. After I was done looking at them, I started flipping through pages in Uranometria and came across a planetary nebula, PN G94.0+27.4 in Draco. At magnitude 14.2 and 114” across, this nebula should be within my reach. Along the way to star hopping to it, I decided to pass over the location where the Draco Dwarf galaxy, UGC 10822, is located. This galaxy is so spread out that it was invisible, or nearly so. I thought I may have detected an ever-so-slight increase in sky background brightness, but it easily could have been imagination. Once on location at the planetary nebula, I began to pick out a very faint circular glow at 75X w/OIII, inside the western side of a diamond-shaped asterism of 11th magnitude stars. I made of sketch of the area to confirm my observation, and when I compared it to a POSS image the next day, I found I had drawn in the nebula at the exact right place.
Next, I turned to the nearby Cat’s Eye nebula. At 290X, the central star was clearly visible, located in the middle of a dark, oval region within the nebula. Not a bad view, but I guess the seeing wasn’t all it could be. However, seeing the central star of the Cats Eye nebula gave me an idea. I had never been able to definitively see the central star of the Ring nebula before. The nebula is just so bright it washes out the view of the CS. However, at 410X with my brand new Pentax, I was able to finally tease the central star out of the Ring, visible without a doubt in moments of good seeing.
After this, I decided to try to observe Palomar 5, a very faint globular cluster near M5. However, I found that Pal 5’s light was just too spread out, even for these dark skies. Even though I had an image of it to compare the eyepiece field to, and matched the field perfectly, I was unable to make out its faint glow. These faint globulars (the Terzans and many Palomars) really are tough to see, even compared to Abell planetary nebulae.
Speaking of Abell planetary nebulae, I next tried to observe Abell 42 (mag 16.5p, 60” across), one of the 33 Abell planetary nebulae I have not yet been able to see. After matching the field with an image of the nebula I had on hand, I was still unable to see it.
By this time, the Milky Way was arching beautifully across the sky in the east. M13, M22, and the North America Nebula were all easy naked eye objects. The pipe nebula and all sorts of dark nebulae structure was visible across the Milky Way. I decided to try to observe some of the faint nebular regions in Serpens Cauda. First up, were Sh2-53 and Sh2-55. Despite using the 27mm Panoptic and all three filters (UHC, OIII, and H-beta) on them, they were completely invisible. However, Sh2-54 was a little different. Despite its huge published size (about 2 degrees by 1.5 degrees, just one small knot of nebulosity (about 8-10 arc mins across) was visible, northwest (I think) of the star cluster NGC 6604. This little knot of nebulosity was best visible with the OIII.
Next, I tried to reobserve NGC 6820, a very faint nebula that I have tried for many times but only once been successful, at the NSP last summer. Using very low power and UHC/H-beta filters, I scanned the area around the star cluster NGC 6823 for signs of nebulosity, but found none of the faint milky glow I had seen last summer.
Craving some eye candy, I popped the UHC filter and looked at M8 and M20, which were both gorgeous. I also tried to observe the nearby planetary Abell 44 (mag 15.4p, 63” across) but was skunked there also.
Finally, Tom had woken up, and was ooo-ing and ahhh-ing at the Milky Way. I popped the OIII filter in and turned the scope to the Veil nebula. After looking at the beautiful sight myself for a few minutes, I let Tom take a peek through the scope and he didn’t want to give the eyepiece back to me. When Tom finally got tired of this amazing nebula and let me have the scope again, I turned it to the North America Nebula, which looked amazing. All sorts of nebulosity was there I had never seen before, and the Pelican nebula looked like a B&W picture. Tom was also wowed by this sight. Remaining in Cygnus, I took the scope down to Gamma Cygni, to see what the nebulosity in the surrounding area looked like. Making wide sweeps, I came across patches of nebulosity almost everywhere! In one of the sweeps, I swept across the Crescent nebula, and me and Tom gawked at that for a few minutes also.
Leaving the OIII in, I moved the scope south to M17, my favorite Messier nebula. As one of my friends once put it, it looked like a short, fat, “green light sabre”. Next, I removed the OIII filter and just made wide field sweeps west of the spout of the Teapot of Sagittarius, finding all sorts of little open clusters, globular clusters, and dark nebulae complexes. This is one of the most amazing things to do in the Great Sagittarius Starcloud, in my opinon.
By now it was about 3:30. I wanted to show Tom an Abell planetary nebula, and reobserve one of the Abells that I had only been able to see from Nebraska so far. Moving the scope north to Sagitta, I zeroed in on Abell 63’s (mag 15.9p, 40” across) position. Using my Abell finder charts I had printed off last year, I was able to match the star field with the image of Abell 63, and once I did, the nebula was rather easily seen, just barely held steady in adverted vision. Tom was able to see the nebula rather quickly also.
Tom next requested Banard’s Galaxy (NGC 6822), and I moved the scope south to eastern Sagittarius. The galaxy was visible immediately at 75X as a large faint oval glow, and screwing in the OIII filter made two small emission regions on the outskirts of the galaxy stand out. I was in a rush now, as it was starting to get light in the east. I ran through Aquila, and showed Tom one of my favorite planetary nebulae there, NGC 6751, which Tom said he had seen before. Next, I headed north to Sagitta, and started star hopping to Palomar 10’s position, a faint globular cluster I had been able to see at the Nebraska Star Party, but not yet in Alabama. However, by the time I got there, it was seriously starting to get light, and the Milky Way was starting to dim. As a result, I was unable to see this cluster. As it was getting lighter, I turned the scope to the Ring nebula again, to try to see if I could find the central star again, but I could not. Finally, we closed off the evening with a view of Mars. One ice cap was clearly visible, as were some dark markings across its surface. It is very interesting looking at Mars right now; its amazing to think we have two rovers driving around down there, and with the recent discovery of methane in its atmosphere, it might be harboring life.
Tom helped me pack up the scope, and as it got lighter, we saw just how hazy it had been during the night. I can’t wait to go back to this dark site in the fall!