7-26, MBOSP, Cat's Paw and da Dawgs

by Jerry Elmer

I tried hunting for it with my TeleVue Pronto and an O3 filter, through which I have seen it many times before. However, last night the sky just wasn't dark enough to see it.

I looked at several open clusters, such as NGC 6633 and IC 4756, both good objects for a 70mm refractor, along with M6, M7 and the "Jewel Box" in the tail of Scorpius. Also looked at several globulars through other people's scopes. The eastern sky was washed out and got worse as the night went on. I saw about six bright meteors, one of which went through Ursa Major heading from Zenith straight down toward the horizon. It burned out just below the dipper bowl before it hit someone in the head. Whew! Also saw one fairly bright one that went horizontaly, east to west, in my scope eyepiece while looking at M22.

Paul Nowicki had a superb view of the Triffid Nebula in his (10"?) Dob. Great view of the dust lanes and structure. Thanks, Paul.

Mike (?) had a nice blue snowall in Scorpius in his Dob, but I can't remember the designator.

There was no dew, but a slight wind. Stayed T-shirt weather till after midnight, but I didn't measure the temp. All in all a very good night. Thanks to Jeff Crilly for having the gate pass and staving off the pack of coyotes that was stalking us and came through the parking lot. Maybe they were looking for the Cat's Paw, too. What a howl!

Clear Skies with no coyotes,
Jerry Elmer