IHOP, 7/29/06

by Shneor Sherman

There were lots of clouds when I arrived around 6:40 and even more when Jim and Margaret arrived half an hour or so later. But as the evening progressed and the crescent moon moved west, the clouds largely moved past us and the sky was rather decent.

I have just obtained three of the new and highly touted Burgess Planetary eyepieces, which I wanted to check out - a 9mm, a 7mm and a 2.5mm. But after observing a few objects with my 22" (Bug Nebula, ansae not visible to me, Jupiter, and even the crescent moon) a couple of cars pulled up around 10:30. Naturally I was ocncerned about the headlights, and approached the people who exited the cars. They were Paul and 6 more Koreans (or at least of Korean extraction, as all spoke fluent korean), all students at UC Davis. Paul's 10" had focuser problems at IHOP 1, so he came to IHOP2 so as not to waste the trip form Davis for his friends. I volunteered to show them some objects, and for an hour so I entertained them with excellent views of the Bug Nebula, M57, M51, M22 and the Veil. Seeing was good toward the zenith, and I used the Burgess 9mm to advantage, particularly with the first four objects. It was delightful to hear the oohs and aahs as Paul and his friends viewed some of the finest objects in the sky. Finally, I thought it was time to focus on some of the objects I had planned to view, and so Paul and his group moved over to Jim's 30".

The sky has become somewhat less transparent by now, and I was unable to find the Hercules Galaxy Cluster and the Aquile dwarf. I did have a nice view of the Saturn Nebula, though, in the Burgess 7mm. And I had a very nice view of M57, just past culmination, with the Burgess 2.5mm (900x) of M57; as Randy noted, the central star was steadily visible with direct vision.

I also had a couple of nice views in my 4.5" Starblast - the entire Veil, using a 24mm Panoptic and an NPB filter, and Andromeda, which actually looked liked an edge-on galaxy (well, almost, as it's tilted).

But the clouds had now taken over the sky, and there was a general move to pack up (about 12:30 or 1 a.m.) We had also heard a pack of wolves or coyotes nearby. There was a general move to pack, which I joined. Of course, by 2 a.m., the sky was again pristine. I left around 2:30 a.m., with Alvin, Gene Kahn, and Jamie.

There were quite a few Tac-Sacers and some Bay Area visitors, in addition to Paul's group of 7.

Clears,
Shneor