Ft. Davis Texas May 2019 observations and sketches

[Howard B]

I've posted scans of my observing notebook pages showing my observations and sketches from my April 30th to May 5th observing trip with Jimi Lowrey and Steve Gottlieb, featuring four nights on Jimi's 48-inch scope and two nights with the 82-inch at McDonald Observatory here: https://tinyurl.com/yy6dsssy

There's also a short write up for each night, along with a list of objects we observed, to help flesh out my notes for what in my experience was the most memorable and exciting six consecutive nights of observing. The combination of great skies and big telescopes was even more awesome than I'd imagined, and I hope my notes and sketches give you an idea of what we saw.

[Raul Leon]

Looks like you had an incredible time. I have to say I’m jealous ,I would love to have looked through the 82 . Your sketches are all great .

[kisspeter]

Incredible observations, Howard! The drawings are also amazing. Those could be magical nights.
What are the coordinates of the lensed arc you saw? Or the names of the galaxies nearby. I can't find anything for MCG +3-46-96.

[Howard B]

Hi Peter,

Yes, those were incredible nights!

Check out this link for the “ACO 2151 Arclet”: http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=ACO+2151+Arclet&NbIdent=1&Radius=2&Radius.unit=arcmin&submit=submit+id

The nearby galaxy is is MCG +03-41-095, so I wrote the incorrect designation in my notes.

Also, Jimi posted an observation of the arclet seven years ago on the forum here: http://www.deepskyforum.com/showthread.php?130-Abell-2152-observation-of-gravational-lens-arc

[kisspeter]

Thanks, Howard. I didn't know it was possible to see lensed galaxies with amateur telescopes. I hope I'll join the club some day.

[akarsh]

I just noticed this -- the lensing arc is in the cluster Abell 2152 (= ACO 2152), whereas the SIMBAD query that works is "ACO 2151 arclet" (it does lead to the correct coordinates!). ACO 2151 is the Hercules Cluster... Yet another of many SIMBAD errors.