by Mark Wagner
I went to Coe last night. There was a lot of high thin cloud visible close to sunset and a steady breeze. The cloud must have settled out as the limiting magnitude was quite good. But the breeze made it chilly, although it was not so bad as to make using the 18" Dob a problem. One thing of note was the fog. While not thick, it settled down to about 1,000 feet, as I drove through it on my way home coming down the mountain. I was above it at the parking lot, in fact the RH dropped from about 80 to 47 as the night wore on. If tonight is like last night, I think elevation is going to be important. Once I passed through the moisture level on the way down hill the sky was obviously washed out. So, I plan on going back to Coe tonight.
A side note, about how things sometimes go when out observing... my Quickfinder battery crapped out immediately and so did the 9v batteries in two of my flashlights. I found one more flashlight, so that worked out okay, but I had to resort to star-hopping through my 10x70 finder ... which has no crosshairs! It was a challenge!
FWIW... I was hitting around mag 15.5 at times.