Dinosuar Pt Saturday Night

by Matthew Marcus


I second that report. The seeing was good but not great early in the evening, but deteriorated in the later going. However, that didn't bother me much because I was doing deepsky fuzzies. The clarity was surprising considering the low altitude compared with some of the other sites such as Fremont Peak or Coe. It was darker than either of those two sites thanks to the hills blocking out the light domes. I was pulling in 13'th mag galaxies with my C8 the way I usually get 11'th mag objects.

I logged over 50 objects, which would be nothing for Jay but is a record for me, and I didn't even stay all night. I left at 4:00. I made a significant dent in an H400 survey and finished the last three of a Messier survey that was started the wrong time of year.

I heard that the humidity got up to 97%. My car dewed up but my scope didn't. I suspect it wasn't a maximally dewy night since neither my finder nor Telrad dewed. Sorry, Mark, I still can't verify that the dew shield you made for me really saved the day. I suspect it did, though!