Saturday, June 13, 1998

After a seemingly endless period of gray skies, Arthur Babcock and I decided to head up to Chews Ridge to get above the marine layer. For a variety of reasons we were going to try using my Takahashi TSC 225 (9" SCT) on his G-11 mount. When Arthur arrived, we started to load my gear and noticed that the G-11 used a different dovetail plate than the GM-8. The only dovetail bars I had for the Tak were for the GM-8 and the EM200. I had gotten the wrong impression from a web page that both Losmandy mounts used the same dovetail. So, we decided to try the GM-8 mount on the G-11 tripod. Having settled that, we headed off to Chews Ridge.

Rarely am I a passenger in a car, and less often on winding roads. Driving my aging Integra, I find winding roads quite fun. As a passenger in a lumbering SUV it was another matter. Carmel Valley Road is narrow and very twisty past the Village. Then there is the six miles of mountain dirt road with hairpin turns and washboard surface.

I hadn't been afflicted with motion sickness since doing a 3:00 a.m. watch on the tall ship Californian, off the Oregon coast. This watch included going down a narrow hatch into the engine room and recording the readings of various gauges. Picture a small dark room going up and down with diesel fumes and lots of noise at 3:00 a.m. Fortunately I was not that sick in the car; I just wasn't having lots of fun.

We arrived at the MIRA gate to find that the set of keys we had did not include the gate key. We could walk the mile or so up to the observatory and get in, but the caretaker wasn't going to be there that night. So, the chances of finding a gate key were slim. As we fiddled with all the keys, trying them in both locks on the gate, we were surrounded by a cloud of flies. They were flying into our eyes, ears, and nostrils.

Because of the flies, possible dust from passing cars, and poor horizons, we decided not to set up next next to the road outside the gate. Instead we headed down (more windy roads) to Sky Ranch on the Cachagua Road. This is a private observatory owned by one of the ASCC members. He has been kind enough to let other members use the grounds for observing. The elevation is about 1900 ft. and has a good view of the southern horizon. We were hoping the marine layer wouldn't come in this far.

We arrived and set up. It was still light so there was no hurry. After a while I recovered from the roads. Files were nowhere to be seen or heard, but a few mosquitoes were coming by for dinner. Strangely enough, they seemed to be more interested in the G-11 than in us. I only got one bite. I killed two of them that landed on the G-11, and I didn't spend nearly as much time defending it as I did my face and hands. :-)

Down the hill from the observatory is a large pond. Coming from that direction was what sounded like the call of some genetic experiment of a sick cow mixed with an angry duck. I was trying to figure out if it was some sort of rabid flock of geese when Arthur reminded me that there were bull-frogs in the pond. I grew up catching tree-frogs in the creek behind our house, but I had never heard frogs as loud and ridiculous as this. Instead of a civilized ribbit, it was more a Budwizer burp. They sounded like they would be big enough to ride on. It was so ridiculous that it was quite entertaining.

As it got dark we polar aligned and I checked collimation at 386x. It looked like the Navy surplus shipping container had protected it from the washboard roads. Perhaps next time I'll find one that I can travel in. :-)

Arthur started looking for Omega Centauri. He found it through the unsettled murk at the horizon. This was my first view of Omega Centauri. It looked like a large impressive globular viewed through wax paper. I could see that it would be impressive, but the effect was lost through the haze. Attempts to find Centaurus A (NGC 5128) were unrewarded.

Next he moved the scope up to M83. Its stellar core was well defined, but there was no sign of spiral arms. The seeing was not great at this time. Antares was twinkling like a christmas light on too much caffine. Later the seeing improved considerably.

I've forgotten the order of things, and didn't take notes. We looked at globular M3 which was fairly well resolved. We had a look at the Wild Duck Cluster, M11, but were unable to see the ducks -- frogs perhaps...

Arthur likes faint planetaries and globulars. Faint enough that it is hard to tell them appart. One such object is NGC 5466, a rather faint (mag 9) globular about 5 degrees east of M3. Another such target was NGC 6712, an unresolved globular south of M11. Must be an acquired taste. :-)

The edge-on spiral galaxy, NGC 4565, in Coma Berenices showed Arthur its dust lane. I'm not sure whether I saw the lane with diverted vision, or diverted imagination.

M24, a detached section of the Milky Way seemed to extend beyond the field of the Tak. Its embedded open cluster NGC 6603 was interesting. It looked like a bump in a see of stars.

M13 was quite glorious. I like the big spectacular objects. I haven't been doing this long enough to get too much of them.

We took a look at the M57 ring at 180x but couldn't make out the central star. We also took a wink at the blinking planetary NGC 6826. It performed nicely. It is an object that is rather shy. When you are not looking directly at it, a bright planetary nebula can be seen. If you stare at it, all you see is the central star. The aperture of the scope will affect this effect.

I found the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Trifid (M20), and the Omega Swan Horseshoe Nebula (M17), using binoculars and the finder scope. It is nice to see them again.

The GM-8 on the G-11 tripod was quite stable with the TSC 225 and 23 lb. counterweight. My previous experiments with the GM-8 on its own tripod (square tube legs) was not very satisfactory. So it appears that the tripod is the weak link in the chain.

By 11:30 p.m. the Moon was starting to wash the sky of deep space objects. We waited for it to rise a bit and had a look, but the seeing that low was not worth staying for. We tore down and headed home about 1:00 a.m. It was a great night after a long period of bad weather.