Brief OI for Fremont Peak 8-13-04

by Rob Hawley

Robert Armstrong, Sean McCauliff, and I had the FPOA area to ourselves last night (Friday). It was one of the finest nights of viewing from a nearby site. The marine layer was fairly low so by 2 AM all of the lights from Salinas and Hollister were covered by fog. Even before that it was extremely dark toward the south.

Earlier in the week Mike Koop described watching the Perseids in shirt sleeves. Well it was not quite that warm last night. A fairly strong wind kicked in about midnight and persisted until we broke down about 4 AM. The restroom area was mostly sheltered, but we did get some scope vibration. Still I was observing in just a sweatshirt until well after midnight.

There were a few scattered meteors. Looks like most of the show has past.

I spent last night playing around with the 6x30 finder I put on the string scope. I am used to using just a red dot ( or Rigel) and then doing a star hop. This was supposed to make the hops go faster. I found sometimes it did help and sometimes it just wasted time. My SCT has an 8x50 finder. Tonight I will see how much the larger size improves the view.

I will be back up there tonight for the public night.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Aug 14, 2004 11:05:48 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 07, 2005 20:51:48 PT