A new moon weekend without rain! Time to dust off the scope (literally...I haven't had a chance to get out for two months) and go off to Grant Ranch Park for the HVAG star party. On the way over, the sky was of some concern. Not a cloud in it, but the color was more grey than blue. I wasn't sure if I was looking at an overcast or not. Many others had noted the same thing, and the prognostication prior to sunset was of low transparency due to high water content, and probable heavy dew. This didn't sound good for my plan, which was Leo/Virgo typical spring galaxy stuff. As darkness fell, the unusually bright and wide spread of the San Jose light dome to the west confirmed that the atmosphere must be loaded with water.
Ah well, one takes what one gets. Since my total 1998 observing time totaled only some 3 hours (thank you, El Nino) to date, I was sticking it out no matter what and would find *something* to look at.
There were about a dozen scopes all told, including at least 4 Celestron C8's of various ages, 1 new Intes 6" Mak, a couple of Dobs, couple of smaller refractors, one ETX, and one C14. Some of the other amateurs had never seen a spectrum outside of a book, so when Sirius popped out, I put on my diffraction grating and everyone got a look at an A-type spectrum. We had a number of other park users around, both campers and a gathering of horseback riders. Some of them stopped to look at the spectrum as well.
When it got dark enough for Leo to show, I started at Regulus and headed toward M96. On the particular star-hop trail taken, there is a trio of NGC's 3384, 3389, and 3379(M105). 3389 and 3379 were visible, if somewhat disappointing in detail with the washed-out sky, but 3384 could not be seen. Nearby M96 also showed as a fuzzy, no-details spot. M95, which should have been right nearby, I never did find. The fellow next to me with the 10" dob did eventually find it, but it was quite faint.
After this, I was sitting there contemplating what to do next, because as Leo rolled westward, everything in it was getting dimmer and dimmer and following "the plan" was clearly going to be futile. Almost as if on cue, a group of campers showed up at that point; this being a public star party, it was time for a little show/tell. Started off with Alcor/Mizar in the Dipper's handle. Could anyone see two stars there? One could. Little history anecdote about how she had just qualified to be a sentry for a Roman legion, as that was a test the Romans used to check visual acuity. Then all looked through the telescope to see tha beside the Mizar/Alcor visual double, Mizar alone was a double. Then they were regaled by the fact that each of the visible stars in the Mizar double is actually a spectroscopic double, so that the middle 'star' in the Dipper's handle is actually 5 stars.
The next topic in this impromptu Astronomy 101 was spectral comparison, using K3 Arcturus against B3 Alkaid, Everyone was able to see differences between the relative amounts of blue, green, yellow, and red in the two stars' spectra. Interestingly, and in line with what I read recently in Science News, the 3 men and 2 women saw the spectral colors differently when we all compared notes on Arcturus. If I remember the article right, men as a group have poorer vision in some parts of the red end of the spectrum than women.
After that, the campers went on to look at other things, so it was back to deciding on what to look at next. Not wanting to give up galaxies on this chalkly sky night (Can you say 'stubborn'? Can you say, 'dumb'?), I shifted eastwards. Taking off from Arcturus, the revised plan was to head into Coma Berenice and hunt around there. The first target was M53, a globular on the way to the galaxies. It was there, but not very bright. There is another globular right nearby, 5053, but that one could not be seen. I may have caught it fleetingly once or twice with averted vision, but could never be really sure of it. Heading west, M85 showed up and actually had some hint of shape to it. Encouraging--conditions might be improving. Went for nearby M100. Not visible.
Discouraging. The plan was unravelling again. Time for a road trip! Stopped off at other scopes to see what people were looking at, and found that some were already giving up due to the bright sky. Dew was showing up, too, and soggied out a couple of scopes unprepared for it. The fellow with the Intes 6" was comparing it to his C8, both on M5 at similar magnifications. Several of us formed an impromptu 'jury' and generally agreed that aperture won; the C8 showed the cluster better with an image was a little livelier and had more resolution. I thought the differences weren't enormous (both views of M5 were enjoyable) but were evident. The owner thought the relative performance of the 6" to the 8" similar to how his 8" compared to the C14 present. Globulars seemed to be about the only "winning" objects tonight; someone else had a nice view of M3.
Went back to my own scope, figuring that if clusters were holding up against the moisture-laden sky, maybe a look at the Beehive might be fun in binoculars. Not only could I not find the Beehive, I couldn't find Cancer! The whole constellation was just gobbled up by the San Jose light dome. You could even see the orange cast from the sodium street lamps. Retreat eastwards!
Hunted up M13; it was the first Messier object of the evening that actually showed up in the finder scope. Finally, a winner; it was just glorious, glittering with stars. Went up to 250X on it, as the seeing wasn't bad. Didn't try more magnification because the whole cluster wouldn't have fit in the eyepiece field of view. Before I knew it, half an hour had gone by, watching M13. The Dob nearby saved me the trouble of hopping to M92, as he had a fine view of it to ogle.
Vega was up, though low. Looked at the double-double, but the seeing down that close to the horizon was rather poor; nothing separated and the stars bounced around. Got in one view of the Ring nebula, though it wasn't really showing very ring-like with the near-horizon seeing. After that, I noticed the symptoms of eyestrain. I usually can observe about 4 hours, and it was just now about that long since sticking the diffraction grating on Sirius. It was kind of nice to stop on something looking forward to the summer of observing to come.
Doubled--more than doubled--the 1998 viewing time log! In a way, the night could be called 'disappointing' (poor sky, didn't find that many items, and many of them were washed out). In quite another way, though, it was a vast success thorougly enjoyable. M13 alone was worth the price of admission; all the rest were a nice bonus.