by Jeff Barbour
Last Friday's bi-moonthly San Jose Astronomy Association (SJAA) Houge Park Public Star Party was a first opportunity to interact with members of The Astronomy Connection (TAC). TAC member Rich N. had gone to some trouble to invite me and fellow observers from the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club (SCAC) to the gathering. Those efforts were well appreciated by fellow AstroTalk members Dan, "El Marko" and myself.
After posting a report on this event (on TAC's message board), received several replies (by private email) addressing a concern I had involving the lack of "feedback" from TAC. As anyone who attempts to "tell a good story" knows - it ain't easy. And although I try to practice a measure of "detachment from results" in such things, I also try to economize on time and energy. These email responses encouraged me to continue in my efforts to build more of a bridge between TAC, SCAC and Astro.Geekjoy.
Obviously one area where bridging could occur was by participating in more events such as Houge Park. But the Houge Park event was dominated by the general public and offered few chances to really "share the experience of the Night Sky" with other avid observers. Now don't get me wrong here, Houge Park is a wonderful outreach activity. A venue where "rub-off enthusiasm" could quite conceivable fan the flames of new comers to our High Art and Science. But my interests lie elsewhere...
So something else was needful - more proximate - and ideally better sky conditions. Following the TAC message board, I soon noticed postings on the Monte Bello observing venue. Meanwhile, an email dialog had begun with fellow TAC observer David (of Palo Alto) who was kind enough to give me guidance concerning Monte Bello observing protocols. This culminated in last night's, Wednesday outing to Monte Bello.
Being the social sort, I dropped an email to Dan and El Marko. As it turned out, Dan had an early Thursday engagement and El Marko didn't receive the message until too late. So I left Boulder Creek accompanied only by 150mm MCT Argo beneath wonderfully transparent skies just as the Sun dropped below the Santa Cruz Mountains.
And ended up at the wrong park half an hour later...
Now the Skyline Open Space Preserve has a decently expansive horizon and could very well be the site I was seeking. Trouble was, I was alone - and if I'd wanted to observe alone - could easily accomplish this from Backyard Boulder Creek...
Taking some direction from a small group of cyclists - (They always seem to know where there at and going.) - promptly took a wrong turn exiting the preserve. Four miles down the road, finally figured the cyclist was right in all particulars and made a U-turn. Page Mill Road lay in fact, north of the preserve - not south. (Yes folks, I get lost like this when star-hopping too - especially when some ignorant idea gets stuck in my head!)
Persevering in my struggle to locate the one and only Monte Bello Open Space Preserve, drove the mile and a half down Page Mill Road (west from Skyline). There, sometime around 8:00, rolled into the parking lot and encountered three other observers - James, Jay, and another who, due to insufficient memory resources, must remain anynomous. Observer James packed a 120mm short focus apochromat. Jay sported an insanely large 6 inch apochromat. (The illusion of great length enhanced by one extremely long dewshield.) Our third observer (A. Nonymous) wielded what I guessed at a distance to be a 9.25 inch Celestron SCT (if so, inch for inch possibly the finest SCT model available).
My first impression of the site: One very expansive horizon. Due to early hour, Moon and clouds, was unable to assess light pollution. However, I can pretty much assume good depth southwest. James pointed out the "Omega Notch" - something most desirable this time of year! Conditions reputed to be stable enough (at times) to support cluster resolution. Excellent!
Now speaking of James, one very outgoing dude. Always with the quips and banter. Why! He's a "one-man star party animal". I enjoyed our talk immensely - but it wasn't doing much to help Argo get set up! Meanwhile Jay, across the parking lot, meticulously proceeded with scope alignment. The 6 incher rode on a large Losmandy mount (G11?). And the 120mm on a Vixen(?). Somehow between all the chatter with James, both our scopes got set up in time to start pulling in the five classical planets of antiquity - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
To be more precise, and on this particular occasion, the line up was: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. Only Jupiter was well placed in the early evening sky. Mercury lay maybe ten degrees north of the horizon.
Venus twice that. Add another ten on for a more notherly inclined Mars. And maybe five for Saturn. Do the math and double all this for Jupe...
And what do you get by the time you get all this straight in your thinking? Cirrus clouds. Lots of 'em. Moving in from the southwest mostly. A chill wind and cirrus clouds, do not make for the best of views.
I heard Jay call out "Shroter's Valley" - and that was enough for me to break away from conversation and scope setup to take a peek. Jay had the region of Aristarchus dialed in at 100x. The view was less than impressive. Lousy equipment. NOT! Seeing was visibly sub-par. Undulatory waves moved across the Selenoscape. This and the kind of high frequency oscillations that blur fine details and squelch contrast. At best, a 5/10 view...
Returning to 150mm Argo, the view was much better... NOT! Same stuff, less than well delineated Shroter's Valley. Aristarchus didn't show any of the three internal peaks seen later in the evening. At 120x, slewed along the terminator in the direction of Tycho. Caught a nicely presented Shickard. Immense and dimpled with a number of oft-furry craterlets. Swung south to Plato. Nothing early on, later that evening made out two diffuse brightenings - thats it.
The evening's first view of Jupiter was through James' 120mm. During a moment of stability caught a dark barge post-CM transit on the NEB. NTB never really did delineate however. Later, through Argo at 210x, noticed the GRS approaching the CM. On a good night, we'd have caught it as it rotated in off the trailing limb...
Shortly after that Jovian looksee, Jay noticed Mercury emerge from just beneath a cloud bank to the west. This would be one of a handful of times I've seen Mercury unaided and with full mindfulness. (Somewhere I read that Copernicus probably never saw it. I may be three up on the Great Astronomer. Makes me feel all aglow with superiority...) Surprisingly views of the two inner planets didn't show the kind of atmo-chromaticism expected. Venus and Mercury displayed a similarity of phasing. Venus, perhaps three times larger than its more sunward neighbor. Perceptible image flare around both gibbous disks. Mars as tiny as Mercury, showed similar low-sky position flare and as much surface detail as Venus...
Saturn however, was a distinct improvement. The planet revealed a diffuse Cassini, lacklustre SEB, and posterior ring shadowing. No Dusky Ring nor Encke Minima this evening! Best views of all the lowering planets was at 120x.
With tour of Moon and classical planets complete, moved on to some doubles. At 210x, Castor resolved nicely - a sign that seeing wasn't exceptionally bad (as it had been the previous night in Backyard, Boulder Creek!). Gamma Leonis likewise. Iota Leonis faintish companion could be caught trailing and slightly south of a flaring first diffraction ring. I went after a few of the other disparates on my Leo list. 39 Leo, looked peculiar but nothing definitive. Bearing a magnitudinal delta of almost 6 magnitudes and separated by 2.4 arcsecs, Kappa needs perfect skies - and a perfect scope! (Like Upsilon and Iota UMA, yet to resolve this one yet.)
Well before "double-time", James and A Nonymous had departed. Jay continued to pursue his doubles list. At one point, managed to wedge myself between him and the 6 incher to catch a 220x(?) elongation of .8 arcsec Zeta Cancri. Later, heard Jay declare that he did in fact get a moment of thinline resolve at 300+X. This usually takes 7/10 stability through Argo. Very nice under the conditions - which were in fact somewhat variable.
By 11:00 Jay had had his fill. As the newbie, I packed up and headed on my way too. Back at Backyard Boulder Creek, setup Argo again to check seeing conditions. No clouds - but comparable stability. It wasn't long however, before the sky was overrun with a mix of high flying cirrus and low grazing cumulous.
That was it for me too.
Will I visit Monte Bello again? You bet - but I'll probably manage to avoid getting lost first...