by Dan Wright
Humidity and cold hampered observation at MB Thursday. The only decent seeing was overhead (and perhaps to the south), because murk obscured the horizons. A blanket of dew settled and the temperature dropped. Including the chill factor from a light breeze, it was downright cold (in fact we used adjectives other than "downright").
I lost my LX200 GPS to dew at about 11:00 PM, despite my dew shield. Gotta buy one of those Kendrik heaters. Later the dew froze, and my scope and chair were coated with ice. Wrapped in puffy layers and waddling about like penguins in polar darkness, we gathered near James T's astronomy van and held a BS session augmented by liquid refreshment. Our subjects included TAC people and recent TAC postings, teenage daughters and dating, the good life in Sapporo Japan, historical exploits in the back of VW vans, and fast cars in general. In an aside to me, Phil T. remarked it was like ice fishing back east, where a bunch of guys meander out into the freezing cold, throw a token worm into the water, then basically drink and BS the whole time.
We held a binocular shoot-out. We must have had 8 or 9 to compare. I thought my Canon Image-Stabilized 15x50's would steal the show, but James T. (or was it Rich N?) had these fabulous birding binos, what were they called? Some name I can't pronounce. He assured me they were more expensive than my Canons. Anyway, holding them up to your face, the binos seemed to disappear because their apparent field of view was the same size as the apparent size of the bino's body. It was like a window in the sky.
Phil T. kept bravely imaging despite the ice (his refractors are immune), and another fellow (embarrassed I didn't get his name) made great progress on an imaging marathon, capturing the pixels of more than 60+ M objects by midnight.
Jay F. showed up, erected an Orion refractor, viewed a mere two M objects in it, then declared he had just observed the final 2 of a complete Messier set with that particular instrument. He mentioned he had also completed M sets using about 19 separate instruments during his career. Whew! And he's never applied for a pin. What good's a pin? It's the observing that's important, he said.
The sky got bad about 1 AM and we all packed up except for the imaging marathon fellow, who planned to set an alarm clock and finish in the morning hours (hoping conditions would improve).
Next time I'll bring an extra propane bottle for "Mr. Heater Cooker"
http://www.mrheater.com/new/mh12c.htm