by Jamie Dillon
Having missed Shingletown and then spending several nights under the marine layer, last Saturday night I was glad to be heading up ole San Benito county road G1 once again. A pretty crescent Moon was chasing Venus into the West, and the cities below were nicely socked in at sundown. Turned out to be one of those nights that make the Peak memorable. Counts thru the night came up to over 6.5 LM for me, and the seeing stayed excellent.
There was a fair turnout at the SW lot, with Elena and Craig and their Rocket, Dave and Akkana, Peter, Crisp in the flesh, this real funny and decent guy Tom who is now a regular up there, Derek with his new light dumpster working nicely, and other assorted folks. The guy with the dazzling laptop has gotten plenty of press. I among others did talk to him directly. It was strangely sad to see someone under this spectacular sky who never got to really see it.
Boy, I sure did. North'll tell you I spent a whole pile of time just plain looking up. The Milky Way was grainy and rich. Watched Draco curl around for long stretches. By coincidence, the two guide stars I was severally using to chase galaxies were both chi stars, chi UMa and chi Dra. A highlight was 3949 south of the Bowl, with an interesting triangular shape in the eyepiece. Turns out to be the same galaxy I'd been ogling from Coe last month. Luginbuhl and Skiff describe its structure in a 12" scope: "Brighter spikes extend along the major axis from the core into the otherwise smooth halo." That would explain the strange shape.
Late in the night, Craig and I spent time studying 7789 (in Cassiopeia) in Felix and the Rocket. What a cluster, with all those swirls and dark lanes. Earlier, I'd been looking at the descending Moon and found what looked like a little crater with an arching bridge over it. Seemed an unlikely interpretation, then it dawned on me who was set up right next to me. North and I stared cooperatively before the Moon set; turns out I was studying a long hill that was casting dark shadows that happened to make a circular shape. This was off Mare Crisium, just south of Cleomedes (right?).
After 0430, down in the main lot after packing up, I was standing and gawking at Cetus up to the left of the Peak. A red light came bobbing over from the Observatory. Took some doing to establish that I wasn't one more feral pig, but the light turned out to be a person, Heidi Wilkerson, new FPOA member.
Very refreshing night in all. Good company, great sky. Yeah, I know, not the epic sky from Sunday night at SSP, but not a bad consolation prize.