by Jeff Crilly
As Mark alluded to in his earlier email, it was a good night at the peak last night...
I prepared for cold weather, but found that I was actually a bit overdressed. I didnt even need a hat for most of the evening.
When I was setting up, there was a bit of a stiff, cold, breeze. However, once the sun set, there wasnt a noticible breeze at the observing spot.
It seemed like dew might be problem, but I kept a cap on the eyepiece when not looking through it, and everything was fine. The telrad was a bit wet... I used the window wiper method to clear it.
I decided to attempt a messier marathon as outlined in Don Machholz's Messier Marathon book. Obviously I had to skip a few of the early evening setting constellations, but I made good progress on it. I ended up logging 94 objects (which includes a bunch of non-messier objects). I sorta ran out of time in the middle of sagittarius at about 4am. (I wanted to get home before sunrise.)
It was a good night. I'd like to go back tonight, but it seems that I'll be looking at pixels instead of old photons tonight.