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The skies were hazy enough in Palo Alto Sat afternoon that I almost canceled a planned observing trip to Fremont Peak. Fortunately I decided to risk it anyway and arrived at Fremont Peak State Park about 8:30 pm. I usually set up by the observatory. However the new unshielded light at the base of the radio tower was very annoying from that location and I spent about a half hour finding another spot on the ranger side. I finally got situated in a very narrow zone where the light was obscured but the views were not.
Scorpio, Sagittarius, and the brightest portions of Milky Way were stretching invitingly in the southwestern sky. The radio station I had listened to on the way to the Peak had been doing a "so long to summer" countdown of summer music classics. I started off with an equivalent countdown of summer celestial classics and was pleased to find the skies both steady and reasonably dark.
The Lagoon, Trifid, and Swan Nebulae looked just like their namesakes, with lots of bright nebulosity arranged as islands, flower petals, or as a ghostly waterbird drifting across the eyepiece. B86 was a beautiful dark ink spot in a rich milky way field. Star clusters were bright and sharp, from the low density jumbled piles of stars in M6 and M7 in the tail of Scorpio, the higher density beautiful V- shaped clumps of stars in M11, and the dense rich piles of granlulated sugar in globular clusters like M22 in Sagittarius.
M10 and M12 in Ophiucus are not found on people's favorites lists, but I am quite fond of both. M12 in particular looked like magical star-bait last night, a rich and pretty globular impaled on a larger fish hook made of brighter field stars. I lingered over this image for a long time, thinking of many great observing and fishing trips I have enjoyed over the last several months.
Then it was off to Aquila and beyond to finish the warmup tour. Barnard's E (B142 and 143) near Altair was an easily visible combination of jutting dark shelves, although not as impressive as it was in the darker skies of Lassen. M27 was a beautiful 3-D puff of light against an interesting star field. F inally, Epsilon Lyra showed a clear, easy, and very steady double double, a harbinger of good seeing that would hold for most of the night.
After the 40 minute warm-up tour was over, I started working on the new stuff for the night, various objects from the Herschel 400 list. The Night Sky Oberver's Guide by Kepple and Sanner has been a wonderful companion for this project, and was my primary source of charts, data, and descriptive comparisons throughout the night. My other equipmeat was a 7 inch f5.4 Dob (the Starmaster Oak classic), which I used with a Vixen 24-8 mm zoom eyepiece for magnifications of 40 to 120x (occasionally doubled with a Celestron Ultima Barlow). Although I brought lots of warm clothes, temperatures stayed in the 60s with clear skies and no dew all night. Absolutely beautiful observing conditions and I had come very close to missing the whole night!
The new objects I founa in Sagittarius and Aquila included a number of small globular clusters (6544., 6638, 6553, and 6642), various open clusters (6520, 6568, 6645,6583, 6755, 6756), and three planetaries (6629,6819, anp 6781). The most impressive of these were the 6520 cluster (because of its interesting juxtaposition with the B86 ink spot) and 6818. Planetary 6818, also known as the Little Gem, is a bright tight planetary with a clear hint of a hole visible with the 7 inch scope. This gives it a mini-M57 appearance, with the nice additional feature of a triangular corral of field stars surrounding the nebula. A very pretty view and worth checking if you haven't seen it.
About 12:45am, I took a break to check out Jupiter, then well up in the sky. The views were absolutely gorgeous, and very steady at 240x or higher. In a stroke of luck, an occultation of Ganymede was just about to begin as I swung the scope over to the giant planet. The tiny moon made a beautiful bright ball bearing stuck to the limb of Jupiter. I had a wonderful time watching the moon, examining the intricate surface details in the bands and clouds of jupiter, and trading views between the Starmaster and a very nice 5 inch AP refractor set up nearby.
I had planned to quit around 1 am, but the views and conditions were so good, I stayed glued to the eyepiece. I made a few variable star estimates, looked up many new and old favorite double stars, hunted some more Hershel 400 objects in Cepheus, and kept checking in on Jupiter, Saturn (and finally the rising crescent moon).
I looked around to the east about 3 am and saw the brilliant constellations of winter rising in the sky. It was late, but I couldn't resist. A night that began with a goodbye to summer classics thus ended with a tour of coming attractions including: beautiful clusters (the Pleiades and Hyades M 35,36,37, and 38), beautiful doubles (rigel,sigma, eta, zeta, and lambda in Orion, castor in Gemini), and the drop-dead gorgeous M42 and trapezium. A last check on the moon (unbelievable resolution and beautiful earthshine), then Saturn (Cassini Division and Crepe rings as sharp as a photo), and finally Jupiter again (great-pink-spot-formerly- known -as-red now clear ly rotating across the face of the planet). These were easily the best views of the giant planets I had in more than a year.
At 4:30 am, I reluctantly packed things up for the drive back to Palo Alto. The farewell to summer countdown continued to play on the radio all the way back, while the constellations of winter whirled overhead. It had been a great observing session. and a wonderful way to celebrate the last weekend of the summer.