by Richard Crisp
We had a good night up at Montebello on Wednesday. There were at least 10 scopes set up at peak, perhaps a few more. I saw a lot of my old friends up there as well as several faces that were new to me.
Because I was imaging, I was not well plugged into the visual discussions about what all was being observed, but I did see several nice views through a few dobs (Phil T's, Marek C's and James T's): Swan Nebula, Eagle Nebula, Lagoon Nebula and Barnard 86. That Ink Spot was very black!
It was amazingly dark to the south last night, darker than I can remember seeing it at MBThe Milky Way was stunning because of the dark skies. The seeing was pretty decent, I'd say about a 6.5 or so. The transparency was outstanding, maybe an 8.5-9. It was also windy. The wind did eventually diminish near quitting time for what it's worth.
I noted a temperature of 60 degrees in the parking lot as I left around 2am. At the bottom of the hill on I280 it was 53degrees. It was clear on the freeway and that surprised me. I had expected a marine layer to be there explaining the unusually dark sky to the south. I guess a combination of wind to blow out the junk and a drop in humidity must have made the air very transparent and that made the sky look dark. Perhaps one of our weather experts can help me here?
I was concentrating on getting some imaging of M16's "pillars" region through Halpha.
I did manage to get a decent shot of M16 too, it is the one at the bottom of the page of the link below (the rectangular one, not the square one)
http://www.rdcrisp.darkhorizons.org/M16_fli_page.htm