by James Turley
Again, were had very nice night Wed, 6/13/01 at MB Ridge.
But unlike Tuesday night, an estimated 20 scopes showed up! Wow. I think it might be a record for MB. Weather conditions were wonderful. A warm very dry Spring wind. Temperature at Sunset was about 68, RH 38. When we left at 2AM, temp was 61, RH 31. [Note. This is serious fire weather!] Steady breeze from the North West at about 4knot, tapering down gradually to calm thought the evening.
Although I had planned a wide field evening in Sag and Sco with my VX114ED Refractor and my new Brass Ranger (dubbed the "Brass Monkey"), Kingsley set me on a quest to split Nu Scorpii. Well...this is the Double-Double in Scorpio, turns out. The C,D pair is easy split, a wide 2.3", but the A,B is the challenge, with a sep of 0.9". Dawe's limit on my 114 is exactly 1 arcsecond, so the AB slit would be challenging. I did note elongation, but no separation. I kept these 2 pair in my scope for an hour or so, and invited others to peek. We were fortunate enough to have Alan Adler this evening, who dropped by, and he confirmed a true spit of A,B. Kingsley, myself and others viewed only elongation.
So, how about the Brass Monkey? I pointed him to the general area. What luck! Right in the FOV was a beautiful pair of doubles, with AB split! Come on. I yell at Kingsley down the line. Is this possible? Either I had a wonderful 70mm APO, or a very bad 114mm APO. Others confirmed this split.
Finally, someone sights down the brass tube: "Hey, that's not Scorpio"...I had randomly pointed him at another double double in Oph. Designation to be determined. This one, with cleanly spit AB and CD. Any ideas??
The rest of the evening I stayed with Mars. Never moving from that target. The Mars Previewer from http://www.skypub.com/resources/software/basic/basic.html#mars is a must have observing aid. The seeing was mushy as usually even at transit around 1AM. With a red filter, some amazing detail jumped in and out. I pushed the VX114 up to 450x, then eased down to a more reasonable 280x for the rest of the evening, and stayed there. This power seemed optimal (a 2.8x Barlowed 6mm Radian on a fl 600mm).
CM 266 degrees at 2300. Diameter 20.56 arcseconds. Features we all id'ed from my scope (4.5"ED) were:
| Utopia | In the Far North...but no hint of the North Ice cap |
|---|---|
| Syrtis Major | Visible by all throughout the evening. CM 280 |
| Lapigyia Viridis | merged with |
| Mare Tyrrhenem | shaped like an inverted crescent moon embracing Hellas |
| Hellas | sharply defined, but not without Red filter |
| Mare Cimmerium | a faint darkness, not well defined. |
Others had a great time, judging from the exclamations. Including a setting Omega Cen, surprisingly steady just 5 degrees Alt. Remember to look for this one just after sunset. Otherwise, it's gone.
We all left around 2am, just as a beautiful Golden Half La Luna rose, and the coyotes started to h owl in earnest, closely. On the way home, gazing up at the clear sky, AGAIN almost hit a Buck in velvet. This time with twin fawns and Mom.