by Matthew Marcus
I second what Robert said. It was a short, but happy night of observing, chatting and meteor-watching. There were some spectacular fireballs, most of which I missed. Meteor showers really show you how small a solid angle your visual field really covers. I did see quite a few good ones, though! Everybody else left around 12:30-1:00. I hung around a little while longer, looking at the moon and packing up. Just as I was doing that, I heard a fluttering whoosing sound, looked up, and saw a bright one blow up to the East. At first, I was trying to think of a plausible mechanism whereby a meteor could make a noise audible on the ground, but then I realized that there was no way such a sound would reach me in time to alert me to look up. It was therefore just a coincidence. By that time, the fog was rolling in, coming up over the lip of the valley below much as it sometimes does at Coe, so you guys didn't miss much.
Robert's new scope set off twinges of aperture fever. Who knows, I might someday go over to the Dob side of the Force.
Mars was still pretty blank, but the polar hood was showing well, suggesting that maybe the dust is starting to settle.
I only logged one new object, but I did do decent drawings of several I hadn't done well before. My last one was the Saturn nebula, for which I hadn't drawn in the ansae. This time, I saw them and drew them. The nebula is distinctly elliptical at 250x, with the ansae really looking like very faint versions of Saturn's rings extending along the long axis. I'll have to check NSOG to see if I'm full of it or not - they are pretty faint in an 8".
Definitely a laid-back, eye-candy sort of night.