Peter Natscher
I was up at FPOA last Saturday night observing from the pads with my 24š Starmaster. The bunch of us fed a surprising large visiting crowd with enjoyable eye-candy despite the 5-day old moon sitting low right next to Antares in Scorpius. By 11pm, the crowd had tired and gone and moon had set darkening the sky nicely. My plan was to continue with four hours of observing more Abell and PK planetaries in the rich Milky Way along with a few interesting barred Sb galaxies. The seeing above turned out to be a mediocre +1 arc-sec and there was a bright haze in the sky. There was noticeable warm/cool air mixing (60-70°F) going on throughout the night that possibly softened the seeing and kept my 24˛ mirror from ever settling thermally. On my drive up to Fremont Park earlier at 5pm, I notice a lot of daytime grey haze visible in the distance in all directions much more than usual. There arenšt any forest fires in our area. Wherešs the haze coming from? This haze made the night sky bright up at FP. I was having trouble seeing mag. 15 Abell planetaries that I should have with my 24˛ Starmaster using an O-III filter. This summer has offered brighter nighttime skies than I remember in the past.Peter in Monterey
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