Fremont Peak - Sat March 1, 2008

Mark Johnston

Twas the need for photons from the direction of Ursa Major that drove the quest to Fremont Peak last night. Because I no longer trust the CSC (oops, old name...) for the Peak, I gave it a go based on NOAA, Lick webcam, Jamies link, and my desire to check out the FPOA pads as well as socialize. Knew it would not be too good but was left with a great night which started rather late. SQM was fairly constant in 20.8 range from 11pm, so not the darkest of Peak nights. Transparency became great for dim-fuzzy searches and seeing improved but was never great.

Quite a large turnout at the FPOA pads with about 4 imagers just down the hill towards the gate. Setup on the lee side of the 30" and was very shielded from wind but not from dew which was always present. My portable dew heater got good usage from several guys last night. A 5th class was there to look at the 30" with an FPOA tour of the skies and wander about till they got cold.

On the pads were Jamie with his tried and true 11" Dob, Andrew Pierce was there with two scopes including his amazing TelePort 14.5" (up for sale I understand), Hans Schulze was there mostly taking pictures (thanks for taking shot of us at the scopes as well). Hans and was 2nd to last of us TACos on the pads to leave just before I packed up. The imagers down the hill remained as I drove by (One of them was 'Brian of Orion' who originally told me about TAC and I had observed with a few times at the PAS site.

The skies were nothing to write home about till after 11pm but because it got so good I decided to keep tracking objects till about 2:20. As last man standing at the pads I decided with Scorpius popping up with Antares many degrees off the horizon it was a sign I really should go home and get to sleep.

Last night was a classic case showing that CSC (oops, old name...) should be treated as 1 of several sources and not used as a go-no-go for planned nights out. This I have seen time and again. Got home 4:30 just as my wife's alarm went off, Maggie being an early riser said good morning as I said back to her good night. LOL.

Logged 22 Ursa Major galaxies mostly in the RA range of the bowl and mixed Herschel 400 and DeepMap objects with several being extra objects noticed along the way from neither list. The bounty was plentiful and I felt the night was well worth waiting out it's slow start.