by Albert Highe
I would guess we had 20 scopes show up at Dinosaur Point on Saturday. There were quite a few first-timers. Skies were clear, but the horizons were hazy, indicating moisture in the air. We had two barbecues running to handle all the food.
I brought my 12.5" f/5 ultralight and used a variety of eyepieces: 18mm and 14mm Radians, 9mm Nagler, 7.5mm and 5mm Takahashi LE.
As soon as the sun set, the temperature dropped 10 degrees, and everyone started piling on warmer clothing. By 6:30PM, the temperature had dropped to 44° with a relative humidity of 73%. Wind was dead calm. No windmills were turning.
Transparency was a bit below average, but the seeing was very good. Jupiter was its best at around 200X and Saturn easily supported 300X. As Jupiter climbed higher during the night, I returned to it periodically, and was able to view it at 300X as well. One of the night's planetary highlights was observing Io's transit across the face of Jupiter. Its bright white disk was easy to see, even at moderate power. It was just at the edge of one of the darker bands, providing excellent contrast. Also noteworthy was the Trapezium. The fainter E and F components were steady, bright, pinpoints - always an enjoyable sight when seeing permits.
Before it was completely dark, Bob Cz. hunted down one of the newly-discovered comets in his 12.5" f/5 dob, and called us over to share the view. I think it was C/2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zha) in Cetus. It was quite bright and appeared to me as slightly elongated and narrower at one end.
During the early evening, I scanned the Fornax cluster of galaxies near the border of Fornax and Eridanus. I had studied this area last month from the dark skies of Sedona, and wanted to compare views. Because the seeing was so good, I was able to improve contrast and get quite nice views by going to 200X. I was even able to observe a few new faint galaxies.
Then, I moved up to M74 to observe the recently-discovered supernova. Fortunately, Jamie D. had printed out a finder chart that made identifying this object possible. At 100X, it was easy to spot, being slightly brighter than the group of nearby stars in the f.o.v.
I also finally got around to the observing project mentioned in the December, 2001 issue of Sky and Telescope. There are a group of galaxies in Aries that are arranged in the shape of a check-mark and fit within a 1° patch of sky. I was able to observe all of these galaxies. However, the most difficult member, IC167, required 200X to hold with averted vision about 50% of the time. All of the rest showed best at this magnification as well.
By 9:30PM, the temperature dropped below 40°F and the RH climbed to 88%. My charts and notes stared to get wet, so I put them away. I continued to enjoy and share views of Messier objects until I left at 11:30PM. My optics never collected any dew, despite the fact that the RH climbed to 92%.