Blue Canyon 8-04-04

by Jake Burkart

I observed last night at Blue Canyon on my way back from an overnight trip to Reno with my wife and my son. It was my first time at Blue Canyon. I found a small group from Sierra College there with two Meade 8" SCTs and an old C14 in one of the observatories. The sky was incredible. I shot a couple of photos of M22, and looked at the bug nebula. The best view of the night goes to the whirlpool galaxy. This was the best view of the whirlpool I've had through my Nexstar 11. I could easily resolve the arms and looked at some detail in the companion galaxy. My view with my 20 Nagler rivaled the C14 the class was using. While Mercedes (my wife) and I were looking at M51, a large helicopter landed and taxied down the runway with lights off, then took off at the end of the runway. It was so cool. I was able to get my corrector plate covered in time.

Before the sun went down, I shot a panorama of the site. I plan on shooting pano's of all the TAC-sac observing sites. What does everyone think of posting each QuickTime VR pano on the appropriate observing site page at TAC-SAC.org? If the group likes the idea, who is the webmaster?

I may be up to joining the group at IHOP this saturday.

Posted on tac-sac Aug 05, 2004 14:25:23 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 05, 2005 22:18:23 PT