by Sean McCauliff
David Kingsley, Ray Duval(?), and other fine people who I did not have the chance of meeting and/or getting their names where there. I think there were 9 telescopes total.
Early on the Great Pink Spot was showing on Jupiter. This looked real good in David's 14.5in starmaster and in Ray's 12in. There was some spiral structure and details in the clouds. David suggested using 400x for looking at supernova2004bd in ngc3786. At 300x in my 10in. meade there were a few moments where there might have been the core and the point near by. I could not see it. It was still fun to try and take a shot at it. David, thanks for suggesting something different.
The most interesting thing I saw all night was ngc 4565. An amazing galaxy. It's so bright I could see it in my 50mm finder scope. It is a razor thin line of goodness streaked across the night. The next best would Jupiter and then ngc 4559. ngc 4559 has 3 dim stars at one end of the galaxy. It looks like a fairly fat fuzzy. With averted vision there seems to be some texture to the galaxy.
Except for some people up at the top of the peak at 1am shining flashlights down at us everyone was very considerate in their use of lighting. Thanks.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 11, 2004 17:44:09 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 10, 2004 16:35:03 PT