by Jane Houston
Unable to contact my neighbor - an astronomy teacher at a local community college - to share the occultations late last night, I figured I could just ease up and enjoy the lunar features and off-and-on stellar twinkles. Whenever I observe with my teacher friend I overprepare - I guess I just want to get that "A", even when the classroom is the back deck and the subject is the night sky. I took out my trusty homemade dob - a 10 inch F7.3 beauty named Stardust, made 10 years ago in John Dobson's telescope making class in San Francisco. With its chrome plated brass drainpipe tube for a focuser, I usually just use 13 thru 32 mm Televue plossls for 57 thru 143 x magnification, sometimes adding a barlow for double effect. Last night I used the 22 Panoptic thru 9 Nagler, pushing the power to 206 x - hand grenade sized eyepieces I was afraid wouldn't fit the simple drawtube focuser. But they grabbed on and off we went on a long nights adventure. Moonset didn't phase us. We just switched gears and galaxy hopped thru the Virgo/Coma realm of galaxies for a nitecap!
The occultation parade began earlier. Like many other reporters, I watched the occultation of SAO 93981, 94004 and 94027 in Taurus. The stellar dance of the Hyades across the darkening limb was whetting my appetite. It was going to be a beautiful night.
And how nice to have a great night to view and sketch Sinus Iridum, my favorite lunar feature. The great Jura Mountain arcs reminded me of a giant scorpion crawling over from the other side of the moon, pinchers forward. Last night with the terminator running right through the middle of the bay, the sun illuminating the mountainous arms, an undulating wave on the floor, visible even in binos. Clavius crater counting yielded 24 this time. I sometimes have seen more. Copernicus! What else is there to say! Splish splash of debris fanned out in the famous rays. Observing the nearby domes is something I haven't done much, but getting e-mail reminders from David North, set me on the dome trail. " Don't miss Rima Hesiodus and the Rimae Ramsden complex in Palus Epidemarium (sorta shady but you can get it) at the end of R.Hesiodus." he wrote. With my handy Rukl, Hitchhikers website up, I was following the reports and spotting the beautiful targets.
Back and forth. Aldebaran red and getting closer and closer. I set the clock to the correct time so I could at least be close. 11:34:50 is as close as I got. In a way the suspense of making sure that I didn't miss it, having to sneak peeks at other targets was relieved when all of a sudden it just went off. No more twinkle for an hour! Farewell Aldebaran. Till 12:47 am I was off the hook and savored beautiful Luna.
Then a few hours passed and it was dark. Goodnight moon. Replacing Aldebaran's rusty red was a new object rising. Mars! I visited a few favorite deep sky objects like the sombrero galaxy at 206 power, before the ritual galaxy hop from Vindemiatrix over to Denebola and up and around. But that's written up elsewhere. Soon it was 6:00 AM. Time for Stardust to get a little sleep.
12 hours later..same deck and same telescope were readied for another evening of mooning. This night called for some astro-tourism, just targeting one area after another and ticking off the objects, sometimes just looking at objects and running to Rukl to see what it was. Sketching here or just enjoying the view over there. I usually take my little red telescope, dubbed the Red Dwarf out for these lunar observations. Dwarfed by my bigger scopes, it still give such beautiful views - but it was put to good use down in Los Gatos tonight - loaned to Mimi Wagner. It was nice to know that as I was viewing the moon through my 10 incher, my little pal was working nights too. I especially love J. Herschel.and have already sketched it with the terminator running right through the middle. But that's why it's worth another look. Every month! Who can tire of this juxtaposition of dark and light, yin and yang, sunset and sunrise on our rocky neighbor. Rima Brayley, Gassendi tonight. Heck, everything tonight, again and again! By the weekend it'll be raining. But I got my fix of the terminator during this nice mid-week moondance.