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by Jamie Dillon
First, I had two 8-yr old boys in tow, who didn't fall asleep till 11. This was after I had them strapped in the car from 9:30 on, once they started weaving in circles. Lovely boys, not at this point into views in eyepieces.
The head on my tripod finally gave up the ghost. Marine epoxy hadn't worked, so it'd been the big guns, hard-drying Permatex. Still came apart. Then the azimuth mount on Felix was stuck so bad the whole thing would occasionally spin in the gravel before the lazy Susan would spin. I was learning that 3 nights out, one a real big one, in 8 days was past my current limit.
Punchline was, it was fun. Company was great, with major lifer Davis, new lifelong friend Shah, and myself in a brilliant little triple (combined visual mag immeasurable).
Mimi and Joanna Sterngold were getting lessons (once again proving what the neuro guys have long known, that girls mature ahead of boys). Papa Sterngold was having a grand time with Rich. Their delight at the images was palpable. Then there was Mr Neuschaefer with his Saturn rocket pointed at Jupiter. Some views. And Mark was handing out Oreos.
Felix and I did get some science done. Following Nilesh's lead, I scanned for M70 then M69. Spent some time staring at these. Distant globulars seem eminently worth any amount of trouble to me. Hit me that this was my first view of globulars below the disk of the Galaxy. Off by the angle about a third of the way toward the core.
Introduced Felix to two objects I'd seen and he hadn't, M34 (gaudy, unashamed) and M15. As the seeing cleared to the East, M15 really was dazzling. 7331 was more elusive: had the Telrad just about aimed right, but after 6 passes, Doug helped me land it. Core, disk and arms were just within view. Stephan's Quintet is still waiting for me.
Then spent a pile of time at the eyepiece per se, scanning the Milky Way in Cassiopeia, esp from delta to epsilon, to M103 and 663, new friends from last Sunday, then up to 457, full of color, with phi Cas blazing right there.
Here's where some science came in. On my new Sky Atlas 2000, phi Cas is a double. OK, sure looked like the brighter star on the eastern edge of the cluster was elongating at 340x. Got Doug Davis to take a look, and he was from Missouri. After doing all we could empirically, we went and got Mark Wagner's Burnham's, and the separation was 48"! It was the primary of the double I'd been trying to split. Useful mistake.
Add to that a pair of galaxies, at least, in Mark's new 18", Jupiter in Rich's Rocket, and for dessert, M42 in the other Rich's SCT, and two zonked little boys and I headed off down the hill.
This was with Felix, 11" Celestron f/4.5 Dobs, with a 25mm SMA, 17mm and 7.5 mm Plossls (with umlauts), all Celestron, and a TeleVue 2x Barlow.
Interestingly, several of the same objects I was studying were the ones Jane Houston had been showing off to folks at Glacier Point: 457, 7331 and M103. Jeff Blanchard had been showing me Barnard's Inkspot, and next time out I'm going straight for eta Cas.
For my eyes, the limiting magnitude at best was 5.0, when Cassiopeia was clear and high in the NE after 2 am. In Pegasus around the same time it was 4.5 - 5.0. Clearly I don't have Mimi Wagner's eyes, but we clearly don't want to calibrate our expectations to those young eyes. I'm in the school of leaving all options open, including sentimental attachments, but surely Coe is a great place to gather.
(Turned out one of the staples on the Teflon pads on my mount had in the last month worked up thru the pad and was just thinking of scoring the top surface. Countersunk that bugger right away. Meanwhile I'm taking Rashad's advice and getting bigger pads from Mr Erbeck and installing them further midships. Also, I deserve a better tripod, and those boys have caught up on their sleep. G'night, fellow Gazers.)