From: rascals-bounces@lists.rasc.ca on behalf of Alan Whitman [whitmans@vip.net] Sent: February 20, 2004 10:19 AM To: rascals@lists.rasc.ca Subject: re: [RASCals] McNeil nebula Thomas Kovacs asked: >I've seen several reports of McN-1 being spotted by Canadians - but is >there any idea who was the first? I lost track, but would that be (as >far as this list goes anyway, but I'd imagine it is pretty definitive) >Alan Whitman? These were the first reported visual observations of McNeil's Nebula worldwide on Amastro, Starrynights, and RASCals (don't know about other lists such as AAVSO) in chronological order: Feb 11th Chuck Dethloff (the Oregon Star Party organizer and a custom telescope manufacturer) with his 24-inch Dobsonian from his rural backyard in north-west Oregon Feb 12th Alan Whitman with his 16-inch Newtonian from his rural backyard in the southern Okanagan Valley, British Columbia Feb 14th Barbara Wilson (probably the world's finest visual observer) with the 36-inch of light-polluted George Observatory in or near Houston, Texas. [Barbara signs herself "proud mama" in relation to Jay McNeil. I'm not sure whether she means that literally (their ages are right, I think), or whether she just means that she was Jay's mentor who took Jay to the Texas Star Party year after year when he was a teenager and taught him to be a leading-edge visual obserever.] Feb 15th Timo Karhula with a 17.5-inch in Sweden Later Feb 15th Dave Healey, Doug Snyder, Neal Galt, and Gary Myers with the 20-inch Ritchey Chretien of Dave Healey's Junk-Bond Observatory in Sierra Vista, Arizona. They also saw McNeil's Nebula in a 16-inch SCT and (barely) with a C-14. Feb 15th: Very experienced observer Bill Ferris wrote a VERY detailed report on Amastro and Starrynights (and even more detailed on his website, with an accurate sketch) of his 10-inch observation from Anderson Mesa, Arizona (a premier darksite outside Flagstaff). In the last four days probably a dozen or more people have seen the new nebula including at least three Canadians, Vance Petriew, Larry Wood, and Denis Boucher. Note that on Feb15th Wes Stone of Chiloquin, Oregon belatedly reported that he had seen McNeil's Nebula with his 10-inch back on Feb 11th (the same night that Chuck Dethloff did) but gave absolutely NO details -- he just mentioned it in passing on Starrynights. Dethloff (private communication) accepts Stone's belated claim as valid and he knows him as an observer from the Oregon Star Party. Stone has since made a second observation with his 10-inch and gives proper details for the second observation. >And how about the smallest aperture used so far? I bet a 10" would do >it. There have been four reports of McNeil's Nebula being seen with a 10-inch: Wes Stone (two observations -- see above) Bill Ferris as detailed above Kenneth Drake of Willis, Texas on Feb 16th (reported by Barbara Wilson with a detailed followup report from Drake). Kent Blackwell of Virginia Beach saw it with his 10-inch from Coinjock, North Carolina AFTER having viewed it a night or two earlier with his 25-inch. He then stopped the aperture down to 9-inches and still saw McNeil's Nebula (which doesn't say that he could have found it from scratch with a 9-inch). All of the 10-inch scopes were Newtonian reflectors so I don't doubt that someone will pull it in with a slightly smaller refractor eventually, if it is at a fine dark site. The Herbig-Haro object HH 24-26 4 is located ONLY 6' SSW of NcNeil's Nebula and it is similar in size, BUT is easier to see. There have been several reports of success with McNeil's Nebula in which there was no sighting of HH 24-26 4 mentioned. Reports of observing McNeil's Nebula are very suspect if they don't report seeing the easier adjacent nebula HH 24-26 4, given the few FAINT stars that are available for starhopping in that heavily dust-obscured field. Best, Alan _______________________________________________ rascals@lists.rasc.ca --- http://crux.stmarys.ca/mm21/listinfo/rascals