A few TAC'os showed up at MB last night. First clear night in a long time.
James Turley, Paul Sterngold, Paul Lefevre (up from San Diego), 3 or 4 others whose names escape me, Eric Ayers (sp?) with his MX7C ccd cam, and a couple of interested guests (including Mark Wagner with binocs) shared views, scopes and converstaion.
The seeing was variable. Ranging from so-so to terrible. Through Paul S's 9.25 sct, jupiter had 2 equatorial bands, period. There was a transit but we know that only from software.
There were short periods where it steadied up but not very many. The seeing was changing in 10 or 15 min. The humidity was registering in the 90's but while eps needed hair drying, the scopes with dew shield only were fairing pretty good.
The upper part of the parking lot was pretty dry. Eric A. was doing some imaging with his MX7C and was gettting some really nice (preprocessed) images. The Flame and the Horsehead as well as M82 showing star formation regions quite nicely.
That MX7C is one impressive camera.
Jupiter had all four moons on one side for awhile providing an interesting view. Venus was in a deep cresent looking very good but Saturn didnt have a Cassini division.
HOWEVER, there was stuff to be seen without rain and that made it very special.
Eric had shown up even though he wasnt supposed to be lifting anything for awhile. Some of us helped him put his stuff away and I think the lot was clear by 11:45.
Bottom Line: I didnt care much that the seeing wasnt very good, it was good to be out with the group and also to see our San Diego contingent.