Jay Reynolds Freeman wrote:
I went to Coe Saturday evening. Perhaps 20 other meteorological optimists were present. By the time I arrived, somewhat before six, the band of clouds to the west seemed ominous enough that I decided not to set up. Sure enough, an hour or so later, the zenith was obscured, and I left. [snip]
The vast majority of us had departed by 8:15pm, Yours Truly (with daughter,
Jenny, in tow) among the wimp crowd. Jim Van Nuland, whom I had parked
beside, indicated he was going to stay till 11:00pm or so. Judging by this
morning's conditions, it *might* have transformed into a nice night. I'm
anxious to hear if the evil-stuff finally blew through. Highlight of the
short evening for me was showing Jenny Saturn ("Ohhh! That's so cooool, Dad!
I didn't remember that you could really see the rings like this!) and
Jupiter's Io/Io-shadow transit ("Cooool! That dot is really Io's shadow?
Hey, that's like an eclipse, right?"). Ah, the little things in life!
This morning Jenny was still talking about how cool Saturn was, as well as
about us having watched a bobcat search for its dinner, perhaps a mile from
Coe's overflow parking lot, while making our way up the hill. On the way
back down, Jenny also spotted a number of deer, so we had a lot to talk
about on the trip home. I had actually parked between Jim Van Nuland and
John Gleason last night, and this morning I was showing Jenny images from
John's web site at
http://www.celestialimage.com. Among her comments: (1)
"See, I *told* you I could see all those stars [in the Pleiades] last
night!", (2) While looking at the image of Omega Centauri, "Isn't that the
thing you once showed me in Hercules?", and (3) Can I see all this stuff
through your telescope, too, or does John have a special one?"
It's been another wonderful Father-Daughter weekend. I'm going to take
Jenny back to Coe this afternoon for a bit, just to walk around ... and look
for bobcats!