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by Paul LeFevre
Bob Czerwinski wrote:
So many of the amateurs graciously put their intended observing lists off to the side for a bit, and spent two to three hours showing off the Moon, Venus, Mars, and the brighter Messiers.
Bob is being somewhat modest. His LX200 was the main focus of attention for the visitors, and Bob patiently explained celestial mechanics, earth's rotation, two-star alignment, GOTO mounts, and many deep-sky objects over and over again. He even got the grass-smoking-guitar-playing locals who drove in headlights blazing and parked in the middle of the lot to get excited about astronomy. Way to go, Bob.
Now, I've only been to the Peak 7 times total...but this was the best night I've ever had up there. It was wonderfully warm (didn't wear a jacket all night), there was no dew problem, the bugs kept to themselves, and the seeing was fantastic. Transparency was around 6 or 7, with the light dome mostly kept at bay by the low fog -- but seeing was easily a 9. Right after sunset when I swung over to the moon, I thought there was something wrong. Where was that swimming lunar image I was familiar with? Rock-steady even with a scope that wasn't fully cooled down...you can hardly ask for more, and it only got better.
Around 7:30 PM, someone asked if there was a lunar occultation...nobody present had heard of one, but sure enough there was a star right in old Luna's path, and it looked like it was going to go behind. As near as I can tell, the star was SAO 119156, a Mag 5.2 star in Virgo. It never got fully behind the moon, but grazed the horn of the crescent and put on a nice show. That was a great start to the evening.
I spent the moonlit part of the evening chasing down globular clusters that weren't too washed out by the moonlight. I started with M4, and easily found its dim companion NGC 6144. Staying around Scorpius, I swung over to M62 and M19. After much searching, I spotted dim NGC 6139 (Mag 9.19), a very small, faint fuzzy in my little 6" dob. NGC 6124, a nearby open cluster, was much easier -- and a pretty little cluster it was. Tried to find NGC 6153, a Mag 12 planetary nebula nearby, but with the moon still up and only a 6" scope, that search proved fruitless.
Most of the night was spent chasing down globulars, and I saw quite a few that I had never seen before. A few of the best: NGC 6760 in Aquila, NGC 6539 in Serpens Cauda, NGC 6356 and 6342 in Ophiuchus...with the steady seeing, I was able to resolve stars in many of these clusters, dim as they were.
A few breaks for food, showing showpiece objects to the visitors, and trips down to Coulter Row to see Crazy Ed's 10" split-ring mounted Newt chasing down doubles and other multiples made the night go by fast. I was getting tired, but with the conditions as good as they were, I just HAD to wait for Jupiter and Saturn to rise -- and I wasn't disappointed. I first caught Jupiter through a break in the trees at the SW lot, and almost fell out of my chair. At 300X, I saw more detail than I had ever seen before -- at least a dozen bands, swirls and festoons in many of them, and very steady images. Sure enough, as Crazy Ed had pointed out to us, a shadow transit was in progress, and the dark shadow of the moon (Europa?) stood out like a pupil in albino eyes. I watched the shadow progression until Jupiter went back behind the trees, then took my 4mm Lanthanum EP down to Crazy Ed's scope with a clearer view of the East (along with Bob C.), and we played with eyepieces and powers until the transit ended. Best planetary observing conditions I've ever seen.
A few minutes spent with Saturn back up at the SW lot as IT passed through the hole in the trees, then it was time to pack up and head home. It wasn't Lassen, but for the Peak it was an awfully good night -- and for once I was very sad to climb into the car to leave, instead of looking forward to turning the heater on full and warming up!