by Bob Jardine
One of my new years' resolutions is to write more ORs; here's one. (Yeah, I hear the groans already...)
Saturday night looked like it might be somewhat clear for awhile according to the CSCs and NWS. But the weather had been changing rapidly, so it wasn't a sure thing. And the moon would be very big and rising at around 8:20, so it would be a short night. I almost didn't go, but I was glad I did. Things were getting desperate, after the cloudiest December I can remember.
Amazingly, about 6 others were equally crazy and/or equally desperate. A surprisingly large turnout for such iffy weather.
When I arrived, around 5:30, it was pretty cloudy, but there were a few sucker holes, and Venus was visible, so I set up quickly. By 5:45, I had Venus in the 'scope, and it was amazing. Definitely one of the better views I've ever had of Venus. Usually it is swimming around when down low near the horizon. Now it was extremely stable at over 300X, very well defined, sharp edges all around. Venus is getting bigger and thinner each week; tonight it showed a very pronounced gibbous shape.
Mars peeked out from between the clouds, and I swung over to it. Surprisingly, it looked almost exactly like Venus. Recently it has gotten pretty small and very gibbous as well. Just the tiniest hint of a dark feature on the face, but couldn't make it out. Again, using a little over 300X, it was just slightly smaller than Venus and slightly more full.
Clouds covered the sky for about an hour, and several of us wondered whether it would be worth staying. We were all glad we did, because eventually the cloud layer started to fragment and dissipate, and a big clear area started forming in the West. This started slowly at first, then all of a sudden the whole sky was clear.
I grabbed a couple of quick doubles that were nearly overhead: Gamma Aretis and 1 Aretis, the first a classic old friend and the second one new to me (from the Deep Map list).
I then spent awhile looking for comet C2002/T7. It should have been easy, but no. The temperature had dropped when the clouds dissipated, and now dew was getting to be a problem. My finder scope was gone. Then some cloud bands came in and crudded up the sky just enough to make me give up in that direction. The sky was much better over to the East.
I went back to double & multiple stars, because the sky now had clouds here and there reflecting the light domes from Gilroy and San Jose. It just wasn't very dark. I worked a little bit on a list of multiple stars from a recent S&T. I really like multiple star systems -- three or more stars form interesting angles, not just a line, and more color and magnitude combinations than doubles. Lambda Orionis, Beta Monocerotis, ... I'd seen them all before, but now I have some first-class optics, and I wanted to observe them a little bit more carefully. This is a pretty nice list if you want to go multi-hunting.
I also tracked down Ceres, which was at opposition sometime recently (last week, I think). This was with 10X50 binocs.
Finally, I turned to Saturn, which was now well up. The seeing was still quite good. Again, using a little over 300x. Four moons were obvious. Checking later with SNP, they were the usual suspects -- Titan, Rhea, Dione, and Tethys. I didn't spot Enceladus; I guess the sky was too bright. Apparently, Mimas out where it could have been seen, but I didn't expect to see it, and didn't, because of the bright sky.
Moonrise was scheduled for around 8:15 or so, but with the nice Eastern hills at Coyote Lake, it would be hidden until later. But around 8:15 to 8:30, the sky crudded up again pretty well, so I packed it up. As I drove out at around 9:00, the moon was just peeking over the hills.
A short night, as expected, and a little frustration with the dew. Only one new object logged: 1 Ari. But it wasn't cold (probably in the 40s) and there was no wind. Pretty comfortable. Given our desperate state at the beginning, I think most of my companions would agree that it was better than a kick in the pants.
Equipment: TOBY, a 10" f/6 CPT; mostly with 9mm Nagler and 5mm Takahashi LE. Celestron 10X50 binoculars.
TOBY now has a new, larger, ground board, for increased stability. This was "first ground" for the new version. It worked just like downtown.