While running errands on Saturday, I noticed that the air was exceptionally transparent. Thus with great anticipation, I headed off for the HVAG star party at Grant Ranch on time and without forgetting anything--both good omens.
The star party itself was in a somewhat different location, on Halley Hill instead of down on the flats by the creek. To get to it, one must drive through the main campground, and the procession of cars loaded with scopes was well noticed by the large numbers of campers, mostly families out enjoying the park on this fine October weekend. Even before dark, they started to appear in large numbers. Some went off to come back later, but others stayed and asked questions (mostly about equipment) while we were setting up.
The temperature was pleasant (and stayed so up to almost midnight, when I left), and not a trace of cloud wafted across the transparent sky. It was a little crowded on the hilltop, but not drastically so. About 10 telescopes showed up, of which 5 were C8's with the rest being small refractors plus one lone 8" dob.
0 Viewing started well before the end of twilight, just as soon as Jupiter showed. The large numbers of visitors crowded eagerly around all the scopes trained on it. And well they should have, because the seeing was spectacularly good (best I have ever seen, a 9 surely and maybe 10) even this early when the planet was fairly low. When I focused on the king of planets, the image was as steady as if it were etched onto the corrector plate. No wiggles, no jiggles, no movement at all. Bands were dead easy, even into the high latitudes. The main band's edges looked like textbook pictures of the boundaries of turbulent gas jets. Festoons were easily visible. I went to 290X and the image stayed both sharp and steady. Visitors without exception gasped when they first looked, and most came around for a second, even a third, look. (I managed to sneak in peeks here and there by mumbling about "checking the tracking". I'd hadn't polar aligned, so it did need some adjustment, but mainly I was ogling. Nobody noticed, or maybe they did but were indulgent...). A local high school astronomy club was at the star party, something I became aware of during the Jupiter session. These youngsters and their mentors were full of questions and tremendously eager to absorb anything you could had to tell them about what they were viewing.
As soon as Vega came out, I switched to showing its spectrum to add a little variety to the "show". An absorbtion line was visible (see note) in the red, the H-beta line practically jumped out at you from the blue-green, and the H-delta and H-gamma lines were also visible in the violet and blue (the red line was difficult, and H-gamma now and again became momentarily indistinct, so the seeing wasn't totally perfect). Again, there was a long line at the scope. Visitors were fascinated and came back again and again to look. The astronomy club members had just studied spectral absorbtion and emission in their schoolwork, and the astronomical spectrum dovetailed very neatly into that. Questions came thick and fast!
After the Vega-fest, I finally took time to polar align--with an audience; people even wanted to know about that.
Saturn was up, and easily took 290X even when down fairly low. The Cassini division was there all the time, all the way around the rings. The view was nothing short of spectacular, also drawing long lines of visitors with many coming around again for a repeat view. Oddly enough, there were very few questions about Saturn. The main one I got was why it had "vertical rings" in my scope, but "horizontal rings" in others (ans: eyepiece orientation. My mount was higher than most, so I had my eyepiece swung to the side for the shorter viewers).
By now, it was well into darkness, and the scopes branched out with many targets in view. I went for Double Cluster, while others were on M13, M57, M31, Mizar/Alcor, Albireo, etc. No matter what any of us put on for view, it immediately attracted a large crowd of eager observers and you spent a good deal of time on whatever object you showed and answering all the questions. Double Cluster itself was extra brilliant with the good transparency.
Did M15 next. It just got better and better as more magnification was put on it. With the steady seeing, stars at 290X were sparkling pin points strewn across the entire apparent field of the Pentax 7mm. Its fiery beauty took your breath away, revealing the true essence of the blazing brilliance of its hundreds of thousands of stars. People did not say "Oooh" or "Wow!" when they viewed this one; they just went quiet, and stared until reminded others were behind them waiting. Here too, many went back through the line repeatedly.
Because I'd been talking a fair amount about the objects viewed, I was a little dry and went for the water bottle. No sooner than members of the astronomy club saw this, but a cup of hot spiced apple cider magically appeared. Not only had these blessed people brought that wondrous beverage, but also cookies--tons of cookies! I was too full from a heavy Italian dinner to eat any, but others of the HVAG crew indulged greatly. Few if any cookies survived. The title for this report was stolen from one of the other astronomers, overheard saying "It just doesn't get any better than this!" before downing another cookie.
Pleiades were up. Many of the visitors were surprised to learn that some things are better viewed in binoculars (7X42 in this case) than in a scope. This is the first time I ever had a line of folks waiting to view through binoculars.
The crowd began to thin out. Most of our visitors were families with children, and it was late for them. Even the astronomy club reluctantly had to go, their teachers having promised to have the youngsters home to parents by a certain time. Instead of the excited hubbub that had been with us, it grew much quieter up on Halley Hill. A few visitors stayed on, but mostly it was just the astronomers now.
I went back to Jupiter and Saturn for a while, and absorbed photons. One of the other C8 owners wanted to compare my 7mm Pentax with his 7mm Nagler. We used Saturn and agreed there was essentially no difference. Both were very sharp, and seeing was not a limiting factor. The Pentax scored better on comfort with its 20mm eye relief. The comparison was a little unfair to the Nagler, as it could not really strut its 82 degree field (vs. 65 for the Pentax) on Saturn.
Someone wanted to see the Crab nebula. It was fairly evident tonight, although no real detail could be seen in its grey fuzziness. While in the area, I went to M35, but could not see 2158 right next door. Perhaps this was because the clusters were both barely above the horizon when I went looking at them. But the Crab was only a tiny bit higher, and it's a little odd that I could find it, but not 2158.
One of the other astronomers caught 891. It was very faint but there even with direct vision, and somewhat more evident with averted vision.
There was discussion on favorite observing targets. Turns out that many of the astronomers present had never bothered to look around Cassiopeia. So as an introduction, we went through the "cluster of clusters" within 3 degrees of delta-Cass: 436, 457, 659, 663, 654, Tr1, and M103. That is one of my favorite little areas of sky, and it was a fitting end to a great evening.
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Note: I am attributing the band seen in the red to H-alpha, but it is possible that it may have been due to atmospheric oxygen and/or water vapor, both of which also create absorbtion in the red.