Wednesday 3 September at Willow Springs

Bob Ayers

Ah "summertime when the livin' is easy".

I observed from the Ayers astro-site at 3000 feet from moonset until 00:30.

Definitely shirtsleeves: at 00:30 it was 71F with a very slight breeze from the north. (There was some inversion: it was 65F at Kevin's -- and 55F down at the pavement, where there is often a river of cooler air.) No dew, no problems ... summertime.

I sketched Sh2-54 and neighbors in north Sag with the eight-inch folded refractor (often at 35x), then turned around and sketched Sh2-132 and the mu Cep region. And peeked at some of the usual summer eye-candy.

My SQM told me "21.35" early and "21.4" late. That is only fair for the site. It looked as though the contributor to the un-good readings was the central valley: in the east, the sky was clearly polluted up to about 50 degrees altitude. Still smoke and such in the central valley airmass perhaps?

Bob Ayers