by Jane Smith
Rob Enns wrote:
FWIW it was a dew fest at Coyote Lake. Transparency was good and seeing was a bit soft. By 8:30 the corrector on my 8" SCT was covered with mist despite the dew shield. Everything from books to binocular were soaked in dew and I had to unpack it all at home to let it dry out.
Jane Smith writes: FWIW it was a dew fest at Fiddletown. Transparency was good and seeing was a bit soft. By 8:30 my secondary and finder were covered with dew despite my prayers. Everything from books to eyepieces were soaked in dew and I had to unpack it all at home to let it dry out.
There were a lot of hopeful astronomers at Fiddletown: Alvin Huey, Jake Burkhart, Shneor Sherman, Bruce Sayer, Dennis Beckley, Darrel Lee, Mike Connley, Steve Gottlieb, Marsha Robinson and friend David. Temperatures were mild in the high 40's, no wind, good transparency in the early evening, very soft seeing, and tons of dew.
Still, it was a great time and I was able to soak up some much-needed photons. While I waited for things to dry out, I caught up on my socializing, and Yes Jamie, I even managed to see a few galaxies. Many thanks to.... Dennis for the loan of a 2"-1.25" adapter for Jimmy's focuser, Jim Ster for the pair of AA batteries to resurrect my Kendrick laser, Bruce Sayer for the loan of a hex nut driver to dissemble the laser, and mega-thanks to Marsha Robinson for the loan of her star spangled 10" dob, Jimmy. Despite the dew, he performed great!
Observing was pretty much a lost cause after the first 20 minutes. I did manage to grab a nice look at M42. And my new 9x50 finder gave me a lovely view of M44, the Beehive in Cancer, framed between delta, gamma, and nu Cancri. Saturn looked pretty much like a bright blob as my optics started to dew up and M51, despite my efforts, never did appear. My whining finally prompted Shneor to take pity on me and he applied his handy-dandy blow dryer to my finderscope, EP and secondary. This bought be another precious minute of observing which I spent on Jupiter. It wasn't the greatest view as seeing was very soft, but I could detect some rust banding on the planet and 4 moons were all lined SW to NE. This was about all I could squeeze out of a very soggy Jimmy, so I moved on to Plan B. When all else fails, mooch!
Darrel shared a nice view of the Leo triplet in his beautiful new 18" Night Sky. It seemed those with larger scopes didn't have as severe a problem with dew as the smaller apertures. Jim and I were especially "blessed". I then moved to Marsha's 14.5" Starmaster which provided a view of Saturn, a bit fuzzy at the edges, but far superior to what I'd managed in Jimmy. Shneor polished off the evening with M104, the Sombrero Galaxy, in his 22" custom Sayer.
Clouds started to roll in about 11pm to add to the dew, so I packed up my soggy charts and dripping equipment and headed for home.
One highlight of the evening was trying out my new Stellarvue 9x50 erect image finderscope. It sports a removable 25mm crosshair eyepiece and a helical focuser which makes it far easier to use than the Orion 9x50 I bought last year. I feel like I've acquired a new mini-refractor. It offers extremely sharp, crisp views. Unfortunately, it dewed up too. However, it's still a nice addition to my astro equipment.
Jane Smith
Fiddletown, March 5, 2005
10" Orion dob with M.Wagner conversion
Posted on tac-sac Mar 06, 2005 18:39:20 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 12, 2005 09:58:36 PT