Two Nights, Two Skies (part I)

by David Kingsley


This was fun to read Mark, since I am also working the Hershel 400 list from suburban or near town locations. On Thursday I was looking for some of the same objects you describe, only from Palo Alto with a 7 inch Starmaster Dob. The Intergalactic Wanderer was visible, but only with averted vision as a dull faint haze at the end of a short chain of stars in Lynx. It was more visible for me at lower magnifications (I was using a 24 to 8 mm Vixen zoom eyepiece, for magnifications running between 40 and 120). There was quite a bit of haze and high clouds in the air, and I would like to look at this again from a darker site on a clearer night.

Friday night looked so hazy in Palo Alto, and so ominous on the later afternoon satellite photos, that I skipped the drive to Fremont Peak. I ended up setting up anyway in Palo Alto for some double stars and Mars observation, which were fine in the scuzzy but fairly steady skies. Sounds like conditions Friday were not bad at the Peak, and I wish I had joined you down there for some less (sub)urban astronomy.