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by Jamie Dillon
Great minds work in the same pattern, Bob. Wednesday there was a novelty of stars at midnight, after an overcast evening. But last night was downright pretty. Seeing was tolerable, moderately wet, and the Double Cluster and M31 were on the edge of naked eye at best, ca 40% of the time, giving about 4.5 magnitude. Not Cerro Paranal, but way more than we've had in the yard for months.
Last evening I had spent two and a half hours replacing and cleaning out taps and spout on the kitchen faucet. So I was ready to wail!
Had a session of flagrant tourism, looking at pretty objects. Really, Czerwinski and I must have had a mind meld. Jupiter and Saturn were in fact better than last time in the yard on the 28th. Saw the blip on Jupiter and didn't know it was a transit. Saturn had three little companions around the bottom (all moons?). Spent time roaming around the Pleiades with a 1 deg field, at 50x. Did the same thing with the alpha Persei association. Now usually I'm obedient and use binocs to hold the field out for these, but it was fun to watch the dazzle.
Landed one new object, NGC 436, just NE of 457, off delta Cas. Pretty little distant cluster. Notable was that this is my first object that's not in SkyAtlas 2000. It is in Tirion's 7 mag charts in the Peterson Field Guide.
Roamed around Cassiopeia some more, thru the Milky Way from delta to epsilon, visiting M103 and NGC 654, sparkly clusters, on the way, comparing eyepieces. You get the idea. On to M52, what Blanchard calls showpiecy. Visited eta Cas and gamma And for the colors, ran by M31 and M32. NGC 205 wasn't at home in the 50x field, really not great seeing. Double Cluster for some serious photon soaking, then Saturn for goodnight.
Real good fun and refreshing. This was the Felix the 11" Dobs, with a Celestron 26mm SMA, two Celestron Plossls, 17 and 7.5, and a new Orion 10mm Plossl, the 5 dollar wonder with clear views. Also a TeleVue 2x Barlow.
On the weather track, see y'all at Pacheco tomorrow evening. Where are you Friday nighters going to eat Saturday? Casa de Fruta?