A Night "NOT" To Remember at BC

by Art Freeman


Well, we all seemed to make it up to Blue Canyon on Saturday like planned, but the weather God's were wearing a frown this night. Among those attending were Gene Kahn, Shneor Sherman, Les Taliaferro, myself and my son Brad, a new comer - Emily Blake-Kessel and three others who I am afraid I didn't get their names or just don't remember. (SORRY!)

Initially, Saturday morning skies were beautiful and absolutely clear. About 10:00 to 10:30 am, I started wondering what the evening would be like as a substantial cloud bank was working itself slowly across the valley from the West. By the time I got off work, about 4:30 pm, the cloud coverage was very dense and almost to the Sierra mountains.

Normally, I would have just scrubbed my plans for observing for the night, but had obligations to sponsor a couple people at HGO for the evening, so loaded up and headed on up the hill. Even after arriving at HGO, it was so cloudy that you could not even see the near first quarter Moon. Upon arrival at BC at 6:45 pm, I was met by Gene Kahn, Shneor Sherman and Les Taliaferro, with the others arriving a little later.

OK! We all, for the most part, decided to give it till Moon set at 10:33 pm before making the final decision to pull out or stay for the evening and it did not look promising at dusk. In the interim, I called to order our National Annual Meeting of Cloud Watchers and started looking for images that manifest themselves in cloud formations and what a treat this was. LOL

By about 9:30 to 10:00 pm, all but Gene Kahn, Shneor Sherman, Les Taliaferro, myself and my son Brad had pulled out and went home. Gene, on the other hand was stead fast and broke out his Meade LX200 - 12" and set up anyway. Les had his cell phone glued to his ear getting updates on cloud coverage from the valley. Finally by Moon set, Les decided to pull out as he was told that the cloud coverage in the valley was steadily increasing and would eventually reach BC. Shortly after Les pulled out, the sky started clearing to our surprise. At about this point, another couple arrived to observe from the HGO Observatory and eventually left around midnight.

By 11:00 pm, I decided to break out my scope and set up as the sky had become about 90% clear with cloud coverage "only" low on the horizons. Shneor also started breaking out his scope and set up. It was about this point in time that sponsored new comer Emily Blake-Kessel arrived and we guided her in to a parking space. Those remaining for the evening of observing were Gene, Shneor, Emily, Brad and myself. Seeing was "fair" at best due to upper level moisture, which remained so for the remaining night. We had some pretty fair views of many objects above, but were disappointed to see Saturn slightly boiling due to the upper level moisture and did not get any better all evening. By the time Jupiter arrived on the scene, the cloud coverage on the horizons started to increase, making the view of Jupiter and the Orion Nebula extremely poor.

It was now about 2:00 am. We were all getting tired and frustrated at the increasing poor quality of seeing. Finally at 2:30 am, the decision became unanimous to break down our equipment and head home.

Interesting how Friday night was one of the years best viewing sessions and Saturday was one of the worst. It was more then evident that Gene was the reason why this had happened as he just received his "NEW 31mm Nagler Lens."

Thanks Gene! <SMILE>