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Rich N. wrote:
How was it at the Peak last night (Saturday)?
Despite an early battle with fog, and high-cirrus frustration on and off throughout the night, it was a very pleasant evening overall. Seems as soon as someone frustrated by the conditions would leave the SW lot, broad areas of the sky would open up. An area completely socked in would mysteriously clear, surprising us all.
(Prior to sunset, Jim Bartolini, Rashad Al-Mansour and Paul LeFevre had requested that someone come forward with a new telescope to sacrifice to the gods-of-first-light, but nobody volunteered an instrument. I was gonna grab Bob Baldwin's short-tube, but figured Bob's wife and brother-in-law would show me the quick way down the hill. <grin>)
'Scopes ranged from the 90mm ETX variety to a beautiful 25-in. f5 Obsession, with a fair a number of folks in attendance at the SW lot. A few pairs of binoculars were also brought out to view the beautiful summer Milky Way.
A number of visitors had also come up to The Peak for an FPOA presentation, and the promise of an observing session with the 30-in. Challenger telescope. Through sucker-holes, both large and small alike, SW lot observers generally sought out Messiers and brighter NGC objects, as well as Uranus and Neptune.
Seeing certainly wasn't the best; I found that most of my favorite globulars started losing major definition once I took my 12-in. LX-200 beyond 300x, even those near the zenith. A month earlier I was viewing the same globulars at 600x-plus with no problem whatsoever.
Transparency also varied dramatically, with many planetaries and a few selected galaxies (e.g., M51) fading in and out of my eyepiece as the cirrus played its game with us.
A number of us kept observing fairly late, waiting to be rewarded by views of Jupiter and Saturn, once they'd cleared the trees on the eastern side of the lot. We weren't disappointed. Definition on Jupiter was incredible, and the GRS (GWS? <g>) was wonderful to watch as it slowly marched across the planet.
Although just having cleared the trees, Saturn was still a treat as always.
A number of early Perseids streaked through the sky during the night as well, and we all made appropriate sounds as they'd come winging through.
Humidity waxed and waned, generally in the range of 70-85% throughout the evening, with temperatures hovering in the low to mid 50s. Although conditions weren't the best, it was great fun sharing views through a variety of 'scopes, trading eyepieces, filters, etc. Forgive me for already having forgotten your last name, John, but the view of The Veil through your 25-in. Dob with an O-III filter was wonderful to behold.
With both Jupiter and Saturn falling to the cirrus-gods, and John and his crew finally breaking down the 25-incher, observing ended around 2:30am. I think Jamie Dillon and I were the last to call it a night, and I headed down the hill about 3:15am, leaving several folks to dream away in the back of their vehicles.