Fremont Peak, 6/4/2004

by Richard Crisp


I was the only person up at the observatory area at the Peak last night. The conditions were decent but not great.

Until the moon rose, it was really dark up there, seemed to be darker than it often is. The moonrise was really spectacular: it was deep orange as it rose through the considerable low level haze off in the east.

There was a bit of wind that would pick up to maybe 10-12mph and then die down. This went on basically all night.

It remained cloudless all night though. At times the seeing was pretty good, in the 2.1-2.4 arc-second range, and then it would slip back to 3 arc-seconds or so later on. In short things were a bit unsettled but not too badly.

The only object of much interest that I shot last night was The Cave Nebula, aka Sharpless 2-155 (Sh2-155). I only took 4 exposures of 10 minutes so it isn't as deep and smooth as I'd like. It is still getting into good sky position so I plan to come back to it before the season is over.

Here's The Cave:

http://www.rdcrisp.darkhorizons.org/sharpless_2_155_page.htm

I also shot six exposures of ten minutes of the Crescent just for fun.

http://www.rdcrisp.darkhorizons.org/ngc6888_ha_page.htm

All these were imaged through my AP180EDT.

The major highlight of the evening happened about 2am. I had been sitting in the jeep catching a couple of winks while one of the exposures was running. I think I must have been asleep for a half hour or so. When I got up I noticed something moving around by the picnic table where I had my gear. Turned out to be a young coyote. That little guy was really cute and pretty brave. I shined my flashlight on it a few times in an attempt to shoo it away but all it would do was walk to another spot. What a cutie. Finally after a few minutes of this it walked away. About 10 minutes later I discovered why the little guy was so brave and wanting to hang around where I was set up: it had discovered and ate the remaining part of my KFC dinner. I think it wound up with about a half of a chicken breast and a half biscuit. Must have been a feast for the little canine.

I was impressed just how tiny it was. Maybe it weighed 10 lbs tops: it was considerably smaller than my 14 pound kitty cat. Other than the small ones we used to see at Montebello a couple of years ago, I'd not been up close to a coyote in some time. It just makes me feel so lucky to have such a wonderful place to go to take images, enjoy the outdoors and a bit of nature. It was a nice evening. Too bad it was just me and the lonesome coyote up there to enjoy it.


Posted on sf-bay-tac Jun 05, 2004 17:57:37 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 12, 2004 21:47:40 PT