by Jeff Crilly
(Alternate title: Saturday Night: Fog and Stars)
(Alternate title: The Fog is full of surprises.)
(Alternate title: An Astro Adventure through The Fog.)
My brother, Skip, (and his two daughters) have been in town for a little business and pleasure. On saturday, we had planned to add a little star party to the pleasure part of the trip. By 5pm Saturday, I had the car parked for an astro trip to the oh-so-close-and-excellent site at Coyote park for an observing session with the public and lots of other fun and accomplished local astronomers. The weather in palo alto looked somewhat uninviting to Linda (apparently); she suggested the nieces, Jean, and herself take in a movie. So it was going to be Skip and I.
We were down the road by 6pm with mostly clear skies, albeit extremely windy. (The winter gear was packed.) Once we approached Gilroy, it was a scary sight... dark clouds were hovering over the Coyote Lake area. This was definetly an odd weather pattern -- a Low situated over the State was just sucking the marine layer off Monterey Bay.
Upon arriving, we were impressed to see the mass of cars and equipment setup. Unfortunately, the clouds were closing in, as opposed to opening up. Nonetheless, we had a great time meeting everyone, and chatting it up... This was one of those Star Parties with a bit more Party than Star.
After a quick bite to eat, one of the local astronomers indicated heading to fremont peak... which was a bit odd, we all thought, since all of us had been looking at the fremont peak skycam, and the satellite photos, etc etc, just that afternoon and it looked very bleak. There was also a very recent first-hand report of Dripping Trees at The Peak. What does this person think? Anyhow, we all wished him luck.
As we started to pack up, Skip and I mused about going up to The Peak also. After all, its just a 30 minute drive from Gilroy (I timed it once). If anything, we would have an interesting meteorological experience. So.. off we were. The time was about 10pm.
As we headed towards SJB, we noted the sky periodically -- still fogged over. No moisture, but fogged over. Then, Skip saw a clearing! Stars!... Oh wait.. that was just a small sucker hole.
As we crawled up the mountain, we still had not reached the fog, and still no stars. Yet were up pretty high already... an area where I have indeed seen fog before. Could this fog be higher than The Peak?... could it be at 3k feet, 4k feet? Oh well, meteorological experience, here we come!
Suddenly, there was a stream of about three or four cars coming down. Uh oh, I thought to myself... probably astronomers. Its looking bleak.
Soon thereafter we noticed haze in the headlights as they cast their beams over the dark valleys of San Jaun Canyon Road. Then, without warning... BAM! we hit fog. Thick fog. 20 foot visibility fog! Now we really slowed to a crawl.
As we crept along, an occasional glance out the window showed, yes, no stars. Opaqueness. nada, nothing. Hmm.. more fog driving.
Then, about the time we got to the flattish part of the road, where the Monterey pines grow short, we looked up and there were stars. Lots of stars. And stars down to the horizon (well almost to the horizon). We had arrived above the fog. Ahhh... Clear Skies.
Off in the distance we could see the ksbw tower bobbing about, poking its head above the hilltops and trees, flashing its lights, beaconing to us, indicating the distance we had yet to go....
Onward we pressed, with optimism, and excitement... We were again encountering a few patches of fog, but these were localized. Then we arrived at Doe Flat, and there we saw it: The Dripping Tree. Quite interesting. Quite drippy, indeed.
Onward we pressed, and soon arrived .. at the observatory driveway, and the gate to the observatory was closed. There appeared to be no telescopes on coulter row; just some campers. We saw the ranger truck by the SW lot gate, but no ranger. Skip hopped out and opened the gate, then closed it after I drove through.
We approached the SW lot with lights off, expecting several astronomers up there. However, all we saw was the silhouette of a van and a red light. It was that other local astronomer. (ok, it was Jay.)
Skip and I greeted him, then back went our heads. Here we
The Sky looked damn good to me, and we were setting up the 15!
The other local astronomer then followed suit.
Was the sky good?, was it clear?, How clear? ... uhh... it was ok. milky way, dark lanes, yadda yadda, clearly visible, although transparency was not as good as friday night, and Jay said it was not nearly as good as wednesday night.
We started off with the bright stuff ... M13, ngc6207, 7331, stephans quintet, etc. M51 looked pretty poor, down there by the horizon. Skip indicated a desire to see comet Hoenig... ok, it was more like "Can you find the comet?" I punched it up on TheSky, and hunted and hunted, and hunted, and hunted, then... there was that fuzzy patch... Between Cassiopeia and Cygnus. It helped immensely to had been shown Comet Hoenig the previous night by Bob C. We watched fuzzy patch drift among the field of stars.
About this time, it was 1am and the wind had definitely picked up. Tolerable, but it was up. We had a whisp of fog nearly obliterate the stars. The ksbw tower light was growing a halo. But then, just as quickly as it had arrived, the whisp of fog departed.
We also looked at some bright sky favorites.... like the veil with and without the OIII, and since the OIII was in, we looked at the ring, and the dumbell, at about 142x. Quite pleasing. And M31 and M33. Bright stuff.
The moon was peaking through the trees, and my eyelids were getting heavy. I sat back and enjoyed the Milky Way for a bit, along with a few yummy home-baked chocalate chip cookies, and probably zonked out for a bit. We didnt pack up until probably about 3 am (where did the time go?); I noted 4:06 am as we departed the lot.
On the way down we nearly had a new hood ornament... two fawn were hopping by the side of the road... I slowed a bit, then one decided to check out the car headlights! I could easily tell the anti-lock brakes were doing their job. Fortunately, we didnt make contact, but it was extremely close.
Upon arriving back in Palo Alto at about 5:30am, the sky was only starting to lighten a bit, yet the moon overhead was surrounded by a black sky, with the smaller crescent yielding an earthshine lit surface.
You just never know what the fog will bring you.