by Jane Houston Jones
It was so cold and windy we immediatly put on all our observing clothes and broke out the chemical hand warmers. We decided not to set up solar telescopes, took a short hike and warmed up in our vehicle. It was already cold and very windy, as predicted on the weather loops. A few solar telescopes were already set up. Kerry Sagar had his new Coronado filter and refractor set up. Another SCT and Kerry's 8-inch dob were aimed at the moon. We stayed in our car and snacked on meat loaf sandwiches and Merlot. :-)
Close to dusk we set up f/5.75 12.5-inch and f/4.8 14.5-inch reflectors. Eventually 12 telescopes set up, and another half dozen (at least) other astronomers arrived with telescopes and just didin't bother setting up due to the wind and cold. An additional half dozen just didn't even bother bringing a scope but came up for moral support and to mooch views
Mercury and Moon, Saturn and Jupiter looked quite good early at low power.Leo and Ursa Major gals wowed everybody. There were only a few visitors early - most people come to hear the lecture at 8:00 p.m. then look through the telescopes at 9:00 p.m. Sometimes the audience is 400 - last night maybe 100 or less. When the talk was over the people who were not frozen came to the telescopes. It was so cold and windy that by 10:00 p.m. we all packed up and headed home. When we got home we watched Thunderbids, a 1960's era sci- fi puppet show filmed in"Supermarionation" showing on Tech TV now. Lots of fun!
| Date | April 5, 2003 |
|---|---|
| Observing Time | 6:30pm to 10:00pm PST |
| Location | Mount Tamalpais State Park Lat 37.88 long 122.54 elevation 1970 feet |
| Equipment | 12.5" f/4.75 reflector |
| Eyepieces | 22 Televue Panoptic mostly 83x |
| Sky Conditions | LM using IMO area 4 alpha-epsilon-beta Gem 9 stars - 5.6 transparency 3/10; seeing 3/10 |
| Temp/R.H. | 39 degrees RH 70 percent steady all night, 20+ mph winds |