by Stacy Jo McDermott
This past weekend was spent getting settled in at the place - also the new location for the McDermott Observatory. The observatory consist of a backyard deck with NE, E and partial S horizons. Eastern horizons while good with no obstructions have a severe light dome problem. I did a LM count per the SEDS website using Cygnus. Using this method, I was able to determine that the area I live in has a limiting magnitude of 4.8. Not bad for being so close to a major metropolitan area. Toward the south and at the zenith, I was able to make out the Milky Way without too much trouble. Not exactly Shingletown, but much better than San Francisco proper.
Skies tonight had very good transparency (7 on a 1-10 scale) but the seeing was a little turbulent (5 on a 1-10 scale). Dew turned out to be a bit of a bother...in fact, it got so dewy, I had to cut my observing session short. I did manage to get some rather nice views of Mizar/Alcor, M8, and Albireo before packing it in (it's also an "early to bed" night due to tomorrow being Monday).