by Dave Atherton
Because of the dreaded "committments" I couldn't get anywhere to observe last night except the back yard. Now, it turns out we've had the tree-trimmers in, so I'm no longer restricted to the tiny strip of sky between the house and the fence, but have a view to the NW to SW as well (where a large sycamore branch used to be).
Well, I also had a committment; so, I had merely a short time to observe from the balcony. At this location, there is about a hour or so of RA between the roof and the row of trees, thus narrowing my selection of objects at any particular time.
So. Out I go, with two little mounts to play with (see previous note) and spend most of my time fussing with them and seeing how they work. But, in the one hour and a half before the dew got me (did I forget to mention the standing water all over the back yard???), it sure was nice to see some stars, a couple of clusters, and Saturn again.
Because of haze, lights, and the aforementioned obstructions, about all I could see of interest was Saturn (with 1 moon, probably Titan). However, it was indeed good to see some sky, again. It had been so long that when I noticed breaking of clouds on Saturday morning, I aimed the scope at Luna for an attempt at daytime observing.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 18, 1998 22:02:53 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Feb 15, 2005 19:50:19 PT