by Peter Natscher
Well Taco's, Bob Jardine and I had a really good 4 hours of observing at Dino Point last night. The observing conditions were just as good as the night I was there last, three weeks ago.
Upon arriving at 4:30 pm, the cirrus and wind were threatening. But, by 6 pm the sky cleared 100% and the wind stopped to 0 mph. The air was dry making no dew while we were there--until 11 pm. The temp. never dropped below 42 degrees F -- balmy for this time of year. We had mag. 6.5 seeing with steady air above and sub arc-sec resolution.
At 6 pm, Jupiter was at the zenith splendidly showing the three white ovals in its SEB following the GRS nicely. By 6:45pm, I was able to spot comet Ikeya in Pisces with my 11x70 finder. The subsequent 10" Mak-Cass view with the 31mm Nagler (120x) was fantastic. The western horizon was so clear, I could enjoy seeing the comet's 3' sized head with its starry nucleus. The comet's tail extended outside the FOV of my Nagler (41'). I ended up watching the coomet all the way to the horizon, it was so clear.
During the following three hours last night, I concentrated with continuing with my H400 observing and sketching program. I observed 12 Herschel's (15 minutes each) and made the sketches of each one. It is taking me about 15 minuites to quality observe at various powers and sketch each Herschel object. I have sketched 79 herschel's since the first week in January. I started out my H400 program with the beginning of the H400 list at RA 0 hrs. Judging by the days gone by this year, I am a bit ahead of schedule in observing and sketching all 400 Herschel's by this year's end.