Friday Messier Marathon at Coe - Awesome!

by Mark Bracewell


(Marek wrote:)The 84/86 area (beginning of Markarian's Chain) looked like the

Hubble Deep Field.

Marek shared this view with me, he's not kidding, 8 or 9 well defined galaxies in the fov and when you moved the scope they just kept on coming.

The evening started out funny and stayed nice - when I went to pay the park fee: Ranger 1: "you don't look like an astronomer, I'll need your license number and..." Ranger 2: "nah, look, he hasn't got a jacket and he looks like he just woke up, stargazer, just take his money"

I decided to non-conform and did a mini double marathon instead more or less centered around Bootes and Hercules. I got 29 of the 30 on my list, plus a few bonuses in Lyra I hadn't expected to see again until summer. Since I started stargazing in summer 2004, I have now circumnavigated the sky! I feel like Magellan (well, maybe not, he didn't make it home).

The hill to the northeast meant that when my targets rose they were well out of the horizon muck, so I had consistent mag 5.9 skies all night over there. It was a bit darker elsewhere. Especially in the southeast at about 3:30 when I quit, what I thought was clouds was actually the summer milky way. Really sweet!


Posted on sf-bay-tac Mar 12, 2005 13:23:10 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 13, 2005 13:24:20 PT