Montebello mud and sky report

by Bruce Jensen, Richard Navarrete, Phil Chambers, Paul Sterngold

Bruce Jensen

David Kingsley wrote:

Skies last night still had lots of moisture and bands of high clouds passing through, so it was not particularly dark or transparent. The seeing on the other hand, was suprisingly good.

Interesting - over here in the East Bay, the sky was almost immaculately clear and transparent, even intown, and the seeing was poor. What a diff a few kilometers can make.

Richard Navarrete

But in Oakland, the seeing was terrific! At least from my backyard. Saturn and Jupiter showed a wealth of detail. What's up with one of Jupiters bands? It looks like part of it is missing. I think I may have missed some posts about this last week.

Phil Chambers

I did some video last night from my yard. The seeing was very steady until about 9:30 when it deteriorated quite badly (got to bed early) and I am about 6.5 air miles from Montebello. However the sky seemed to be relatively transparent even after that.

Paul Sterngold

The seeing from my sidewalk in Alameda was also good (not great) earlier in the evening, and then again after 11pm. There was a stretch between about 10pm - 11pm when it seemed to soften. Transparency, otoh, seemed poor - about the opposite of Bruce's experience, and he's only about ten miles away!

Regarding the missing SEB, I found out that it's been that way for quite a while, trailing the GRS. As last night wore on, it was interesting to see it "brighten up" as the washed out section passed and brighter sections came into view.

I used my C11 at powers up 233x (175x was about the optimum) on Jupiter and Saturn, and there were plenty of moments of lovely clear views. I also observed the Trap/M42, split Rigel, and took a look at M36, M37 and M38, and finished with M1. When I first observed the Trap, I could see 'e' but not 'f'. Rigel was an easy split. Later (after 11pm), I went back to the Trap and the seeing had settled, enabling 'f' to pop easily into view. But transparency wasn't great, so the clusters weren't terribly impressive, and M1 was nearly a washout, even when tried with an Ultrablock filter.

Still, it was nice to get out.