by Matthew Marcus
The sky actually cleared, until it got dark. Then, clouds moved in from the N, W and a few from the S. However, they stalled and left a large part of the sky open. Since I wanted to do some Virgo galaxies, this worked out nicely for me. While the sky wasn't very transparent, I was able to get 11 mag 11-12 galaxies I hadn't logged. In addition, I looked at Venus, which is getting to be a nice, large crescent, Saturn (moments of suspected Enke division/minimum) and Jupiter. Early in the evening I think I saw the GRS on the E side of the planet. Can anyone confirm or deny a GRS transit at ~2000 PDT 17 April? Later, around midnight, I saw considerable lumpiness on the NEB. Seeing was OK but not great, so I couldn't tell too much. For instance, I tried to split Porrima and only got an elongation at 250x. I don't think seeing would have supported 400x. A car pulled into the lot at ~10-11pm and dimmed its lights, leaving only a dome light, and stayed there for a while.
I suspect that he was a night fisherman. He didn't come up to see what I was about, though he must have been able to see my red flashlight and 'landing lights'. I didn't come down and invite him for a look, because I didn't know what I might be getting myself into, and I also didn't want to appear to him out of the gloom of night saying strange things about looking at Jupiter. Unfortunately, I had to pack up at midnight, leaving a starry sky behind, because I had to get up today (Sunday) at some hour that non-astronomers consider reasonable.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 18, 2004 13:11:29 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 10, 2004 18:42:05 PT