MB this evening

by Lance Boehm

My wife and I arrived just before 10pm and found one other observer in the lot, who mentioned he had been there since 8pm. After a short while, a third showed up. Sorry I don't recall their names, I am really bad at that. If you guys are reading this feel free to chastise me off list ;-)

We did manage to catch a few Leonids, one fireball being particularly outstanding in the northeast direction. It illuminated the whole sky with a bright green trail before exploding in a white flash.

Only 1 of us had brought a scope, and he decided to set it up around 11pm to take advantage of an apparently clearing sky. Despite the surface level breeze, the air overhead was remarkably steady. Targets were M42 (at two different times), Saturn, M37, and a few others.

M37 was interesting in that it had a salt and pepper look to it, with a single reddish-orange star near the middle. Definitely a target I'll look at again under better conditions.

The sky almost fully clouded over around 12:30, which prompted us to start thinking about leaving. Of course, as we were getting ready it started to clear again.

We left at 1am, and the other two observers were getting ready to go right behind us.

Despite the forecast, I'm still hoping for clear skies this weekend!!