by Jamie Dillon
Not the best Salinas has to offer, but there were stars out. The sky had a transparency of 4.5 to 4.7, with seeing poor 2/5. So this is a message to the lurkers that it doesn't even take a dazzling view out the back to have fun.
There was some comedy too last night. I've never gone thru downtown Virgo from the backyard. Last night I remembered why. 6 Coma, the signpost star at the NW edge of downtown, was far from naked eye. Got it lined up, and M98, which I know as a big bright part-edge spiral, was barely there. M99 on the way on in was absent. Plopped Felix right down in the middle of the main cluster and saw only real faint waverings.
But, I lured a nice woman outside with that great come-on line, "Hey, you wanna come see some galaxies?" Joey peeked at M65-6. They weren't at their best, so your correspondent pulled out the big guns and lined up on M3. Made an impression. Then I noticed Hercules had pulled sufficiently over the roof, so you know what I showed that nice woman next. "It looks like a stylized image of a star," she said, "with those arms radiating out."
(Felix is a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with a primary made by Discovery. Was using a 22 Pan, a 10mm Radian (the new kid) and a TV 2x Barlow.)
I consoled myself over the bright background with long looks at Cor Caroli and Mizar, both still stately, and then spent a long time watching M3 then M5 at 126x. went back to M13 last, Barlowed the 10mm for 252x. The seeing cleared about 40% of the time, and that cluster kept having moments of taking my breath away.