by James Turley
| Date | Wednesday, October 4, 2000, 1700 - 0030 PST |
|---|---|
| Location | Location: Montebello Ridge, CA 37.328ºN, 122.1966ºW UTM Zone 10, N 4131357, E 571177 +37º 19' 40.8" -122º 11' 47.76" Elevation 2300 feet http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=37.328&lon=-122.1966&s=50&size=s |
| Equipment | VX114ED (4.5") 600mm f/5.26 Refractor, GP-DX Mount, SkySensor 2000-PC ROM 2.0, Sony VAIO PC-505 Notebook, TheSky V5.09. MiniGiant 9x63 binos, on Bogen mounted Virgo mount. |
| Goals | Shake down Laptop to SS2K GP-DX control through LX200 emulation. |
| Seeing | 47.23% moon in Sag. Transparency good. Skies steady. Humidity stayed at 57% all night. Temperature 68 to 56 F. |
Decided to arrive early, mainly to miss traffic 280N from Saratoga. Arrived at parking lot to be greeted by a horde of Mountain Bikers. "Cool camera you have..isn't it getting dark?" :-) Guess he thought I had a big telephoto lens. Well, the 114 is short.
Phil Chambers (looking sleepy), Jay Freeman, Rich Ozer show up around 7PM.
Moon approaching transit at Nunki in Sag. Darn...forget to try to pick out M22 and the Moon in conjunction, as suggested somewhere. Probably would have been a wash-out.
Messed around with my mount. Got an accurate Polar Alignment through GP-DX polar scope. Cranked up the Sony and TheSky. Couldn't get 3-point alignment. Hey...you forgot lock RA! Arcturis, beep. Mizar, Beep. Deneb Beep. Connect TheSky...Nice cursor pointing right to Deneb. Ok, laptop and SS2k are talking. First time, out of the box, it works. A rare event in any kind of emulation.
Jay calls out. "Most difficult double for a GEM, wanna see?" What's that? Polaris. Nice view through his AP 6" triplet.
Working in the North sky away from luna. Cass is high. Familiar fuzzies. M31 poor contrast at 80x. Double Cluster, but can't see Red star between. TheSky working nicely, maybe too much info on the screen. Nice drill down of FOV...has nice Field rotation feature to match EP view to Screen view. DSS graphics are nice. "Synch" feature refines alignment.
Test out free slewing, using SS2K controller. Can slew with controller, watching cursor on laptop follow. Or..can move laptop cursor, and slave scope to new position. I have 49 databases connected, with "autosense" as cursor moves over an object, info auto pops up as a mouse "Tip". Double click "drill down" screen, with multimedia tab (quicktime movies of comets, Jupiter rotating, Palomar globs .gifs, etc.)
Tires screeching, crazy Jag XJS slews into the lot in a cloud of dust. "Hey Dude...what ya lookin at?" Wasn't the gate closed? But pleasant, guy. Showed him the setting moon.
Phil announces he can't stay awake and packs up just as the moon is about to set!
Jay shows Rich and me nice views of Jupiter and Saturn. Couldn't tease out Enkche (sp?). Cassinni nice. No comparison of his 6" view vs my 4.5" refractor view at 200x. Jupiter is boiling for me, and much steadier for Jay. Jupiter looks very nice in Rich's short Newt at 300x, surprisingly. Nice alignment of Io and Europa.
Rich and I admire together the Great Pegasus Glob (M15, NGC 7078) through his Newt. He shows me how to Star hop to it. His scope resolves the surrounding star field with my 8mm Vixen SWL, but couldn't find Pease 1 nearby. In my 4.5" no resolution of individual stars, even at 200x.
Try to find the "Blue Flash" (NGC 6905), no luck. Continuing in Vulpecula, visit the Veil. No veil. Plunk on the Ultrablock, boom...the "Waterfall" (NGC 6960) pops out. Not with colors like Ray Gralak's NGC6992 he shot at Coe in September, though :-) Should upgrade to a 2" O3 filter for this.
Still remember Michelle's view of the entire FOV Veil in her TV Pronto and a Jeff's 31mm T5 Nagler + O3 from LSA week. Michelle's comment was that Al designs a complete system...each part working together to form a perfect Veil, all within same Wide FOV.
Moon sets, Rich packs up. I hang out, alone in the dark sky. Jupiter has settled down. Saturn wonderful at 200x. Some coyotes in the far off ridge. Feeling lonely....rustling in the bushes. Hmm....sounds like a cat....getting sleepy at 1230. Lock gate...
By the time I hit Foothill Park (3 miles down) Fog has hit. Good timing.
A nice evening, all in all, at Montebello.