by Alan Zaza
Glad some of you got to see the aurora. I was 10 minutes into setting-up in the SW lot at about 10:30 when a reddish glow caught my eye in the direction of the Big Dipper. At first I thought it was red brake lights from the parking lot below so I walked down and no cars! Then it dawned on me I was seeing an aurora due to the intense solar activity lately. Incredible! It was mostly an intense reddish-pink glow like a fog and bright bluish streaks sometimes running vertically. Luckily, I had my camera outfit and shot a whole roll of film during the next half hour.
Weather was very nice. Light breeze on and off, no problem. Temperature never got lower than 53 F. It stayed clear and dry all night. Transparency was good and it seemed very dark- 5th mag stars were easy. Seeing however was of the scintillating type- not good for planets, but just fine for galaxies at 100X.
I used my C9.25 to hunt down galaxies for the first time in Virgo. I started with M84/86 with NGC4388 forming a triangle. A very nice field. Then up Markarian's chain. I also saw NGC 4565 for the first time- great. M53 was an incredible globular which was resolved at 200X. I languished for 15 minutes on that one. Saw M64, black eye gal, very bright, and M101 with some hint of structure. Looked at M97 the Owl neb- very nice round planetary at 100X. Towards 3-4am I was looking at Cygnus and the summer milky way. The Wild Duck cluster was stunning. Saw the Swan, lagoon and Trifid- all looked great. Mars was big in the eyepiece at 200X, but only saw only a yellowish blur circle and maybe thought I saw a white polar cap- the seeing was poor at this time. A wonderful night.