by Jamie Dillon
The sky was real decent. Before moonset Rashad and I did a count in the Finnish Bootie: I got 14 stars, he got 24, the bugger. So I was seeing a 5.8 sky, he was looking at 6.2. After moonset I moved up to 17, a 5.9 sky. Seeing was 4/5, good. Everything held up at 210x fairly well.
With Rashad and Peter, Elena and Craig were there with the Rocket, their 8" D&G. They're both good observers and get serious results with that scope. Rashad drooled all night around his new toy. And he's not kidding, the Moon was amazing in 3D thru Tobor the Great. Peter was using binos in his 20 as well, showed me Pickering, the crater pair with the long skid marks.
Derek has added to his dizzying array of scopes. Sure knows how to economize. He'll have to give out details. Kids and adult visitors, enjoying mooching views, and several other scopes with attendants, including this guy Tom with his SCT and a great sense of humor.
I was sitting admiring M10 and M12 when the lightbulb went off. Last summer I had a little project of finding all the globulars in Ophiuchus out of SkyAtlas and had two left at the end. Got 'em last night. 6235 is framed in a right triangle of stars, is diffuse with uneven edges. At 210x, with the 6mm, got 7-8 brighter stars to resolve across the cluster. It's listed as 32.6 kly away. 6287 is closer, 29 kly, and very different, round, tight, condensed. Got sugary at 126x. Studied it a 210x, after a couple of minutes got plenty of resolution, more than 20 little stars across the face. Rashad came over and verified the resolution in 5 seconds or so, what had taken me minutes.
Over at the Observatory, Ron was showing off M16, and the claws of the Eagle stood right out with a broadband filter in the 30". That was worth the stroll. Back at the lot, I finished up with a tour of Sagittarius, the Lagoon, Trifid, M22, the Starcloud, M16, and the Swan. Stared at M17 with the OIII. Then Craig ambled over and we played with the Veil with the OIII for a good while. Fun night in all.
And the Moon set right after midnight, just like the APD said it would.
Nyaa nyaa.
(This was in Felix, a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with a primary made by Discovery. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, 10mm and 6mm Radians with a Lumicon OIII.)
Night, all.