Randy, Mars, Myself along with a couple of my good friends Dave and Jim made
it up to Fiddletown for the evening. Considering the amount of discussion
about getting out on the group, the size of the turnout was sort of
dissappointing. We all expected to see more people out tonight. The road
was a bit rough after you started up the hill after the "Y", but Shneor,
I think you'd of made it up easily by driving carefully. We had variable
moisture all night, but my dew shield and heater on my LX-200 worked
perfectly. I was able to use up to about 250x, but every now and then the
seeing permitted a little more.
Some of the higher points of the evening included:
Seeing Mars and Randy.
Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann (73P) was spectacular!! When I first started
my search for the comet just south of M13, I was getting a bit frustrated
from not being able to find it, when suddenly a tumbling satellite or spent
rocket booster went flying through my FOV and I started manually tracking it
with my slew buttons. After about 5 seconds of tracking it, it led me
directly to the comet! How lucky was that??? Anyway, it was unfreakin
believable to see this beauty. Not only was it big and bright, but it was
moving at a pretty good clip. Over a period of about 3 hours, it moved
about .6 degrees and transited 3 stars in the process. I was just barely
unable to get both the comet and M13 in the same FOV in the TV-101. I could
get the nucleus of the comet on the left side, but you could just barely
make out a hint of sky glow from M13, which was barely out of the FOV on the
right. A very gentle nudge on the scope would bring it in, but lose the
nucleus of the comet. Still, it was breathtaking to see.
Omega Centauri through the "Art Freeman Gap". Just a fuzzy white blur
on the horizon, but definitly OC.
Leo Trio.
M81 & 82.
Jupiter / Io transite with associated pimple.
Mars.
Lots of meteors!
M51
Stars. Lots and lots of Stars.
A bunch of Planetaries and Globulars
All in all one of the more satisfying nights I've had up there.
Now I'm off to bed.
Posted on tac-sac Apr 30, 2006 04:43:02 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 May 02, 2006 20:28:39 PT