Sunday/Monday night

by Mark Wagner

I was out last night. Up on a mountain top, where the fog came to within fifty to one hundred feet below me. City light were gone. Not just dimmed - - gone. Some dew, yes, but not bad. The sky was very dark.

Some highlights (there were many) -

NGC 1977	the Running Man - easily identified three individual NGC reflection nebulae in the object.
M42	wings extended around in a complete circle using UHC filter. Dim nebula NGC 1980 visible.
Rosette Nebula	easy - jumping out obvious.
Abell 1367 in Leo	counted 20+ galaxies in 48' field.
NGC 4565	dark lane bisecting this edge on was sharp and very obvious. NGC 4562 was easy just to its SW. Some of the dim IC galaxies to its north were just peeking in.

When I woke in the morning, the fog was just sitting below me, covering everything. Mountain tops were little islands poking above the "ocean"... Light fog began blowing by me from the north, and facing away from the sun a light "arc" in a parabola shone - a white and hints of electric blue rainbow. Surreal scene.

I had a great time. I hope others got out too.

Scope	18" class Dobsonian.
Location	undisclosed
Seeing	steady but not rock solid
Transparency	very good to excellent
Limiting mag	estimated at mag 6.6.
Light	No light domes.
Temp	was comfortable

Posted on sf-bay-tac Mon Jan 19 23:14:31 2004 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.0 Sat Jan 24 23:20:46 2004 PT