The Fool on the Hill

by Paul LeFevre


The skies in San Francisco began clearing yesterday morning, so thoughts of a night out with my scope began brewing...my ISP was shut down for Sunday for maintenance, so I had no way of contacting any TACos or seeing the weather pictures, and being a charter TAO member (TAC Astronomical Optimists), I packed up my dob and left home for Fremont Peak at about 3:00 PM.

It rained a bit on the way down 280, but by the time I reached the Fremont Peak road, skies were clear and I allowed myself to think that it might be a good night. It was clear all through the valley heading up, then within 1 mile of the southwest lot, I suddenly found myself inside a cloud. I continued on up to the lot, pulled in, and felt like I was in another country -- 20 to 30 MPH winds and dense, wet fog. Yep, the inside of the cloud. I was the only one in the lot. It was 5:10 PM, so I decided to wait it out a while and see if it cleared, spending the time reading my newly-arrived S&T.

By 6:30 PM conditions were worse than when I arrived, and showed no sign of letting up. The ranger pulled into the SW lot, and came over to tell me he was going to lock the gate...so I sighed heavily, and turned around to head for home. What a wasted drive, I thought.

After navigating the downhill drive and arriving in the valley below, the skies were once again clear, and there was virtually no wind. Damn weather! I pulled over to the side of the road at one of the few dry spots, and looked back at the Peak -- still enshrouded in clouds. Looking at the sky, I couldn't stand not getting at least SOME photons, so I started pulling equipment out of the car, and set up my 12.5" dob with its newly-installed DSCs. I don't know if I was on somebody's land, public road, or what the situation was -- but it was dry ground (5 feet from the road), and it was clear, and I was going to do some observing.

The good news is that the digitial setting circles (the Meade Magellan I, home-built mountings for the encoders to replace the units designed to fit on Meade dobs) worked great! A got a 100% alignment, and the DSCs put object after object dead center in my scope. When I arrived at M1 following the computer's instructions and it was on the edge of the FOV, I centered it and hit SYNC on the computer, and it was back to hitting everything dead center. I should spend less time searching for objects from now on, and more time enjoying observing them!

It was quite cold, I was unsure of the legality of my location, and cars driving by kept ruining my night vision...so I only stayed about 1 hour before packing up and heading for home. Still, I got some viewing in (I can feel the tension drained from my body after only that short time!), and I got to verify that my DSCs work. Five hours of driving for less than one hour of side-of-the-road observing...damn weather!