by Jeff Crilly
Everyone has pretty much echoed my experience at the peak on 5/19.. fair number of scopes ... a bit crowded ... warm weather ... no humidity ... an occasional strong gust ... poor seeing ... and the fog...making for a faily dark night.
Btw, here's a picture of the sun sinking into the fog.... http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=719470&a=6098676&p=48894920
As I drove down 85 sunday, I was a bit concerned with the amount of haze... it was even difficult to see Lick on Mt. Hamilton. Further south, the haze seemed just a tad bit thinner.
I was elated when I got to Gilroy to find the fog rolling in to 101... there was a chance it would be a good night. The weather predictors were calling for "not much marine layer" saturday.. I was pleased they were wrong.
It turned out to be a pretty dark night... even with the poor seeing. Some amount of a light dome existed to the NNE and SSW, however the west was fairly dark... dark enough to get an excellent view of M51 in the early morning when Ursa Major was dipping to the horizon. I imagine conditions might have been better up at the observatory.
There was an exodus around 3am, though some folks hit the pickup bed for the night.. Amid the snoring I countinued to observe until sometime after 4am.
On the road down I noted the fog had indeed rolled in fairly well.. In fact I was under overcast skies all the way back to palo alto.
On Sunday, I dragged myself out of bed at noon to meet some folks in san jose that afternoon. As I was heading home, it was looking like another nice night; possibly even less haze! Unfortunately, my body was calling for sleep.
Btw, (this has probably been mentioned here in past months) the new tower is, well, not all that high. (This was the first time I had seen it.) It is lit by a white strobe during the day. At night, it appears the strobe intensity is turned way down, though not out. It was about as bright as mars, maybe mag -2? (Much less than the neighbors porch light!) Its a bit distracting, however (imo) acceptable even when observing objects in the area of the tower. I couldnt detect any effect on the ground from the light... though I did note some very slight off-axis light into the eyepiece. I'll need to make a baffle.