by Richard Crisp
Until the moon rose, it was really dark up there, seemed to be darker than it often is. The moonrise was really spectacular: it was deep orange as it rose through the considerable low level haze off in the east.
There was a bit of wind that would pick up to maybe 10-12mph and then die down. This went on basically all night.
It remained cloudless all night though. At times the seeing was pretty good, in the 2.1-2.4 arc-second range, and then it would slip back to 3 arc-seconds or so later on. In short things were a bit unsettled but not too badly.
The only object of much interest that I shot last night was The Cave Nebula, aka Sharpless 2-155 (Sh2-155). I only took 4 exposures of 10 minutes so it isn't as deep and smooth as I'd like. It is still getting into good sky position so I plan to come back to it before the season is over.
Here's The Cave:
http://www.rdcrisp.darkhorizons.org/sharpless_2_155_page.htm
I also shot six exposures of ten minutes of the Crescent just for fun.
http://www.rdcrisp.darkhorizons.org/ngc6888_ha_page.htm
All these were imaged through my AP180EDT.
The major highlight of the evening happened about 2am. I had been sitting in the jeep catching a couple of winks while one of the exposures was running. I think I must have been asleep for a half hour or so. When I got up I noticed something moving around by the picnic table where I had my gear. Turned out to be a young coyote. That little guy was really cute and pretty brave. I shined my flashlight on it a few times in an attempt to shoo it away but all it would do was walk to another spot. What a cutie. Finally after a few minutes of this it walked away. About 10 minutes later I discovered why the little guy was so brave and wanting to hang around where I was set up: it had discovered and ate the remaining part of my KFC dinner. I think it wound up with about a half of a chicken breast and a half biscuit. Must have been a feast for the little canine.
I was impressed just how tiny it was. Maybe it weighed 10 lbs tops: it was considerably smaller than my 14 pound kitty cat. Other than the small ones we used to see at Montebello a couple of years ago, I'd not been up close to a coyote in some time. It just makes me feel so lucky to have such a wonderful place to go to take images, enjoy the outdoors and a bit of nature. It was a nice evening. Too bad it was just me and the lonesome coyote up there to enjoy it.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Jun 05, 2004 17:57:37 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 12, 2004 21:47:40 PT