by James Turley
| Date | Friday, January 19, 2001, 1615 - 0100 PST (UST -8:00) |
|---|---|
| Location | Montebello Ridge, CA 37.328ºN, 122.1966ºW UTM Zone 10, N 4131357, E 571177 +37º 19' 40.8" -122º 11' 47.76" Elevation 2284 feet http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=37.328&lon=-122.1966&s=50&size=s |
| Equipment | Garage Sale C8, GP-DX Mount, SkyWizard DSC |
| Present | Kevin Schuerman (MN71) , Peter Santangeli (CG11, ST-7 imaging), James Turley (C8) |
| New Toy | Blue 1989 Ford Aerostar dedicated AstroVan, now with Aux Battery diode isolated charging circuit |
| Goals | Good now, who knows about tomorrow |
| Weather | 5PM 43 degrees, 7PM 34 degrees, 74%, 12 midnight 47 deg, 63%. Minor dew threat at 7PM. Optics dry all evening. High/Low 51/32 74 percent/38 percent. Light wind, subsiding to Dead Calm after sunset. |
Arrived at 1615 to an almost empty parking lot. Crystal clear skies, light wind. Venus bright and high. Tonight, I decide to set up the C8, and super tweak the collimation again. Hikers dropping by. Show them Jupiter's moons (the outer ones very close), Rings of Saturn, 1/2 Venus. These people are really smart, and love the views. One said that her view of M42 was the highpoint of the Millenium so far for her.
Seeing at MB seems to become very good right after sunset. But as the evening wears on, the light domes to the North and NW seem to grow up into the air. Most of the evening we were cloudless, until high cirrus scud started to crawl on from the North around 10PM. As Bruce Jenson had noted from last Wednesday, these clouds looked like white bright curtains of Aurora. A description to which Peter, a Canadian, quickly objected, eh?.
You meet the most interesting people at MB Ridge. A young aeronautical engineer from Boeing St. Louis wandered over. Staying at some motel on El Camino. Working at NASA/Ames wind tunnel testing designs for the F-18. We had a nice discussion of GEM mounts, RA/DEC and Celestial Coordinate systems. Galactic coordinates. I soon realized just how much I DON'T understand about Astro Dynamics. Fortunately, I was less clueless than he. He watched fascinated as I Polar Aligned my mount to synchronize my scope's motions with that of the earth. Sometimes, it's good to verbalize one's understanding of complex interacting systems to achieve some clarity for yourself. I learned a lot from trying to answer his informed questions of the motions involved in the Cosmic Dance. I guess this is the essence of the Socratic method.
Now for the fun:
8" Mercury (!): Trace the ecliptic, and what's that??? Mercury is boiling in the Western sky. We're tracking as it sets at exactly 1834, closely following the sun. Not pink, but like a dirty Venus. Surprised at the size of the disk. Appears like an ellipse. I wonder if this oblong appearance is due to the lensing effect at low angles, or to a "phase", or more likely both. The Sky shows that Mercury is at 80.3%, Mag -.89. Does Mercury have phases like Venus and the Moon? All the inner planets do.
8" Rigel 19-B Orionis: at 167x before collimation no split. 10 minutes chasing and eliminating "comets" results in a perfect separation of the dim and the bright.
8" M70 Lepus. Watched Peter image M79 Lepus Glob with his ST-7. In my C8, very dim, probably because sit was stuck in the San Jose light dome, which got more and more annoying as the night wore on. Later Peter caught some pleasing detail in Jupiter, which was pretty good all night.
8": M35/NGC 2158. Who doesn't like this pair? A fine target for a TermiNagler. Showing OC's of similar size buy 6x farther away then it's bright neighbor. 2158 has nice compact symmetry and even distribution and looks more like a loose glob than a tight OC.
8" and 7": NGC 2174/NGC2175 Emission Nebula and OC in Orion near SAO 78049 (?)
Kevin an I spent a good deal of time trying to id the star fields surrounding this Emission Nebula in his Intes MN76 and my C8. This is an Emission Nebula near or in the center of a loose hazy OC. Well..I could detect the faint OC with averted vision but no nebulosity, and Kevin kept seeing the nebulosity around another star, but no OC. We never really nailed this one. Just as we gave up, I consult NSOG (1-277), and noticed "The catalogue position of NGC 2175 .... seems to be incorrect." We didn't log this one.
8" Jupiter: Believe it or not, I found someone on Asromart to trade my 5mm Radian for a 10mm Radian. Saving me having to sell my 5mm to Rich (sorry Rich!) and buy a new 10mm, losing about 90 bucks. A further bonus was that the interested party was in San Jose, so we did a trade off at the Fry's Parking lot.
Jupiter all night was very nice at 200x with the 10mm. At 250x wobbling in and out. I forget what filter to use on Jupiter, so Kevin noted that Orion suggest the 80A light blue, as an all around filter for those that afford the $34.95 filter set. With the 80A, the NEB seemed to be more contrasty, and generally, the viewing was a more comfortable with it. The effect is subtle.
8" Saturn. Very very yellow tonight (without 80A). At 250x the crepe ring goes in and out. From Kevin's 7", it's more contrasty, and stays in focus more at similar power. Later as Saturn Transits, she gets very yellow. What is a good filter for Saturn?
Scud starts to dominate about 1215, we all pack up together and depart. A great calm night, great company, with very fine Winter conditions.