At last!: OR Coyote Sunday 12/29/02

by Matthew Marcus

Despite all the gloom & doom on TAC, I chanced Coyote last night. Nobody else was there the whole night. While it didn't look good at the start, the sky cleared up nicely. Seeing was soft, as expected and the sky was bright. There was plenty of moisture up there and at ground level.

Figuring that I wouldn't have much time, I started with eye candy, looking at 457 (ET/Owl cluster), M103, 663 and 654 (OCs in Cas), the double cluster, M1 (practice for Saturday, in case I manage to escape), and M77. Then, the temptation to log some objects got the better of me. I went for 7727, a galaxy in Aqr I'd gotten before, and used that to jump to 7723, another 11th-mag galaxy. That wasn't too hard, so I tried some more and was having unanticipated amounts of trouble. I struggled along for a while, went for something a bit brighter (584, a mag 10.5 galaxy in Cetus), realized what must be going on, and said "Dude, I'm dewed!". Even with the Mark Wagner Special dewshield the C8 was totally dewed over and the body of the OTA was wet. Forget about the Telrad! I tried my usual Undew trick of pointing the scope at the ground and waiting - no go. I tried running the car with the heat on and pointing the scope in that direction - still wet.

Fortunately, I'd left the Ranger packed up, so it was still dry. I set it up and continued, catching M42, Saturn and M1, M79, M35, M31, M81/M82, M44, M41, M36-38, the California Nebula (H-beta filter; it was right at the zenith), M76 and Jupiter. Around that time, I found that despite the presence of a dewshield, the Ranger was dewed and being pointed at the ground during the above observations hadn't helped the C8, so I packed up. I hated to pack my scopes wet, but what could I do? I left at 10:30, turning my back on clear sky, something I usually don't do. At least I upheld my tradition of being last out!

Anyway, I got a bit of a photon fix. A short night is better than none!