by Jamie Dillon
We'd had dinner, Liam was ready for bed, my new partner at my new job had just called to coordinate, and Annie Jump was loaded and raring to go. First evening after the solstice. Yessss.
It was overcast in Salinas, and by encouraging contrast there was lovely sunset light on the hills along San Benito County Rd G-1 on the way to the Peak. At the SW lot Craig and Nick Barth had just gotten there, and we got set up for a quick 3 hours of fun. They had gone to Lumicon yesterday, where Nick bought his old man a Telrad for Father's Day, for their Orion 8".
Big difference from a lone 6x30 for them. You should have heard Craig when he sighted first on Antares in lingering daylight, "Oh boy, this is gonna be fun! Man, this is easy!" He had M4 in no time in twilight.
In the interest of empirical science I will explain that the Peak didn't reward my assertiveness by putting on a record night. Sure looked promising, with the towns on the coast completely blanketed. But there was haze to the West, and yes yes I know those trees on the East side of the lot aren't getting any shorter. So it was OK but not Mauna Kea. In the Finnish Bootie, Nick counted 15 stars and I got 14. So we had a 5.8 night, with seeing 4/5 most of the time, occasional high altitude wind. I know each site has advantages and disadvantages, but I just really am fond of the Peak and would like it to be among the concrete options.
Saw plenty deer and quail on the way up, as well as a grey fox at the trailhead just as I got there. For other sites, I caught one new object, NGC 6830, a bright little tight OC just NW of M27, another Dickinson object. Spent time studying M27 itself, the Apple Core Nebula, which was having a good night. Went from 57x to 79x to 210x, back to 79x, with and without the OIII. Just a pale hint of pink color without the filter; looked to be billowing (with steady seeing now) along the waist. Some object.
We were doing eyepiece work, not nattering, so apparently I was in teaching mode. Nick the 14-yr old took to that Telrad like a duck to water, and his Dad has great analytical skills, so they had a big night. They both like to scan a promising area, chartless, sort of riding bareback, and see what they can find. Craig had the nontrivial accomplishment of finding a small galaxy while scanning Coma. It was 4494, the next neighbor W of 4565, listed by Burnham as E1 at 10.9, not too easy in the 8". He wasn't using a chart; it's his, he discovered it. Showed them 4565 and they were both happy for a good 20 minutes.
All spent long minutes studying the Omega, Swan, Checkmark Nebula, M17, which the Barth Boys now call the Roman Nose. I really didn't want to go there, but in the OIII they were right and have changed the way one of my favorite nebulae looks. Hmph.
A little binoc work on the Moon and we were off by 1 am. Bullialdus was striking, and a chain of big craters was right on the terminator, dramatic, turning out to be Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus, Arzachel and Purbach. The wind was soughing thru the trees, and after the Barths drove down the road there wasn't another soul on the Peak. Warm breeze, pretty, ah summer.