by Dave Bush
I just got home from what was probably the one of the best nights that I have ever spent at our Del Valle site. For the benefit of those who have not yet been out there I thought I'd share my evening with you. Note, this is not an observing report. I don't write observing reports.
The weather looked questionable as I left my home in Antioch and headed south to Livermore. There were high clouds all over but it's been my experience that once the sun goes down, often these clouds disappear. When I arrived the clouds were already beginning to thin out. There was a bit of a light fog or haze in the surrounding valley but I did not think that it would be a problem.
I got set up and waited for darkness to fall. I checked my collimation, had a tuna sandwich, and watched some of the local cows as they too had their dinner.
I spent most of the evening on easy familiar objects. I was feeling rather lazy so I did not try to track down anything that I hadn't already seen before. As it turns out I think that probably 70% of my time was spent on M42 and it's surroundings, the double cluster in Perseus, and M35 in Gemini. They all looked much better than I have ever seen at Del Valle. The air was VERY steady and the sky was quite dark. Even the western horizon, which usually has a significant light dome, was dark. I wonder whether or not there were any low clouds that might have shut out some of the light from the Tri-valley area.
I was easily able to see, not detect, see the "e" and "f" stars in the Trapezium (sp?). The detail in M42 was really clear. Hubble's variable nebula was very obvious at 80x as was the Rosette. M46 with that cute planetary, NGC??? was just beautiful. Etc, etc...
I finished up with Jupiter and Saturn. Great detail in both. Critical collimation of an SCT makes a BIG difference.
Equipment notes:
My scope is a Meade 8" LX50. I use an f/6.3 reducer/corrector 95% of the time. Most of my observing tonight was with a 16mm Nagler (80x) and a 9mm Nagler (142x).
For me with my rather busy schedule, Del Valle is a great spot. My only regret was that there was no one there to share all this with :-(