by Richard Ozer
The drive up the mountain was colorful, with the setting sun illuminating the dried grass with a fiery yellow glow. I reached the summit just as the sun set.... it was already 39 degrees and dropping. The wind was a steady five or six miles an hour, with no sign that it would let up.
About a dozen or more observers were there, half with a very nice selection of refractors. There was even a new 6" Takahashi APO. I had my dob, there were a few Orion refractors, two or three SCT's, and a 16" obsession.
As the temperature continued to drop, I mentioned that anyone who should notice another observer visibly and uncontrollably shaking behind their eyepiece or, conversely, demonstrating no movement whatsoever, should consider it a distinct warning sign and immediately call for help.
I certainly had ice on my mind. First, I took a last look at Mars' southern polar cap, then we had a contest to find comet Encke. Encke, as described in Peter Natcher's earlier post, was easily found by locating the coat hanger. It had no visible core, and appeared as a distinct arrow shaped smudge (or smudgecicle).
A more challenging find, which I haven't yet seen anyone post about, was comet Linear C2002 T7. Linear was located just above the California nebula. Unlike Encke, it was all core, about the size of a medium sized planetary nebula. I had trouble finding it because I was using too low a magnification. Only after I bumped up the power to over 100x, was I able to clearly see it. Part of the problem was the wind, which had picked up to a steady 10 - 15 mph, and the fact that my eyes were watering (and then freezing).
After seeing both of the comets (which is the only reason I went out last night), I took a look at the Blue Snowball and then packed up. It was only 8:30.
Althought miserably cold, it was nice to get above the smokey gunk. The transparency was superb, and the seeing wasn't half bad, even with all the wind.