Dang!

These days, I'll take what I can get...

After attending the Giants Home Opener yesterday, I got home and like the rest of you was dying for some photons. I put the scope outside to cool off, and hoped for the best. When it finally got dark about 8:30, I went out to see a beautifully clear sky, minimal light glow from downtown San Francisco (I was at home in my yard), and none of my neighbor's lights on. Score! The only downside was the fairly strong AND VERY COLD wind...

I swung West and started with M42/43, as they won't be around much longer. The transparency was excellent, but things were pretty turbulent and those pretty stars were twinkling like crazy. Every now and then it would calm down for a few seconds, and the recent rains having washed all the crap out of the air, provide some great seeing. Over to M41, just because it's my favorite open cluster -- and it too will soon be gone.

I've had almost no luck seeing galaxies or globular clusters from my backyard, especially anything to the East where downtown SF lies, because of the sky glow. Last night seemed as good as any to try some, so I headed NE to the Ursa Major to check things out. Found M108 with little trouble, and I was amazed how easy it was (I've looked for it from my backyard a least two dozen times, and never seen it). Down to M109, then M106, both easy tonight. Even as I moved down to the horizon, where things are usually VERY washed out, I was still getting good contrast -- and no skyglow filter!

Tried to follow the line down to M94, but I must have skipped past it...I kept going down to the horizon towards just-risen Arcturus, when M3 popped into view. Now, the view of M3 from my 6" scope in the city didn't come close to what I saw in Mark's 20" at Pacheco, but it was amazingly good. I added some more power (up to 120X from 46X), and got even better contrast. I was beginning to get very cold, and the wind was pushing the scope around a bit, but I've been so photon starved I decided to try a few more targets.

I swung over to try and find M64, but ran into NGC5053 instead (I had to get the charts out, since I knew this wasn't M53, but was close...). This cluster was much fuzzier than M3, but it was still an easy find. Up a bit to M53, much brighter than NGC5053. Straight up to M64...and there it was. Just the slightest hint of the black-eye center, which came and went with the shifting air, but it was great at 72X with the 17mm EP.

Feeling bold, I was going to try and see how many galaxies in Virgo I could pick off...but the wind picked up some more, and it was hard to hold the scope still. I also noticed it was hard to hold it still because my hands were shaking, and my backyard thermometer said 39 degrees, so I packed it in. Four galaxies and three nice clusters, all in less than an hour and from a place in light-polluted SF where I never thought I'd see any of these things.

Did it make me feel better that I finally got some observing time in? Yes, but...all it really did was remind me how crummy our weather has been, and how much I want to get some time to use my telescope! Dang! :)