PAS Observing

Saturday, 7/29

by Matthew Buynoski


I was up at the PAS site at Oakridge Road. We had to duck clouds now and again, here and there, but did manage to still have a reasonable time. I had a new scope owner with me (hence, the clouds) and he was learning all the ins-and-outs of collimating and using a 10" dob.

The seeing was actually pretty good most of the night, although the transparency was poor (lots of water in the air :-). Still, around midnight I had a really good view of M8 through the C14. At 180X the nebulosity essentially filled the view and the "lagoon" itself was very evident with lots of hints of structure within it. Some pretty good views of globulars, too, the "usual suspects (M's 4,13, 22) and some smaller ones near Kaus Borealis which I'd never been really able to find with the 8" SCT, but the C14 found them very easily on this particular night. Galaxies were hopeless, though, even though it was pretty dark to the west.