by Richard Ozer
On Sat. I went to the MDAS society night at Mt. Diablo. It's tarantula mating season and I have a little game this time of year where I count the number of tarantulas crossing the road on the way up and try not to smush them. I counted nine! And does anyone know why the tarantula crossed the road?
I've always found that Mt. Diablo has, on average, has particularly good seeing and last night was exceptional. It certainly was a night for viewing planets. Even at midnight, just an hour or so after the big guys rose, we were seeing fine detail on both Jupiter and Saturn. I found the orientation of Saturn's rings this season to be notably different than last year, and I'm wondering if others have noticed this as well. The rings are tilted more toward the Earth and where the rings reach around to the far side of the planet is tangential to the edge of the planet itself.
I finally got around to figuring out Cetus, practically invisible to my naked eye and no better at Diablo, and bagged M77 (a visually unexciting 8.9 mag spiral galaxy), bringing me one Messier object away from finally getting them all.
I spent part of the evening spent splitting doubles, aka: eta cass, iota cass, double double, gamma andromedae, and zeta aquarii and then took a look at the Saturn Nebula, a dim view of the Veil, and finally the Helix Nebula with a neighboring scope. The double cluster was spectacular, as was the pleides, and all in all I had a fine night.