by David Kingsley
The weather prospects looked so good yesterday that I decided to head down to the Peak Friday night. A handful of observers and imagers had outstanding conditions by the observatory. Clear skies horizon to horizon all night, warm, no wind, no problems with dew, valley fog steadily building all night long, and a complete deep marine layer below by the wee hours. I did a limiting magnitude count about 1 am and got better than mag 6.2. I should have tried again later because it just got darker as the night went on.
I wasn't even going to do the marathon this year, after getting 108 of them with the Traveler from Coe last March (see Traveling a Marathon: /reports/2004.03.19.4.html). However, I started looking at some Messiers in between other objects, and soon realized that there were many that I had never even looked at with the 14.5 inch Starmaster. Before long, I was sucked in, and ended up getting 109, everybody except M30 at dawn. (And even for that one, I was sitting in the dirt as the sky brightened, scope pointing into the grass at a near perfect horizon. Even with tracking turned on to try to pinpoint the position in the brightening sky, there was no chance for M30 from this latitude at this time of year. By the time it came up around 5:45 am, the sky was so bright that I couldn't even see M22 with tricks and high power, which was was much further from the sun, and much further out of the muck by comparison).
Tons of other fun stuff seen during the night, including lots of NGC objects, McNeil's nebula by M78, central star in M57, plus both Omega Cen and Centauras A through the 30 inch Challenger scope at the observatory. John Gleason commented that Omega Cen through the 30 inch looked somewhat like the view through much smaller scopes when Omega Cen is way up in the sky in Australia. I'm looking forward to doing that kind of comparison myself soon (Australia bound in just 3 weeks)!
After tearing things down at dawn I walked over to the rest of the park, paid my $4 fee, and hiked the trail up to the Peak from the SW lot. First time I have ever walked that particular trail, and it was spectacular way to end a wonderful night's observing. Bird's singing, sun shining, and the entire valley in all directions transformed into a deep billowing sea of fog, with mountain tops showing up as islands above the foamy deep.
Forget Coyote tonight unless you want a very short night. You will drown in the valley with the thick fog that came ashore last night, and is forecast again for Saturday. On the other hand, the same conditions that wreck the valleys are great for the mountain tops. Hope everyone who heads for Coe or Fremont Peak tonight finds conditions as good as they were last night. I went for the bird in the hand Friday and am so star stuffed I probably won't be up to an encore after trying to get some work done this afternoon.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Mar 12, 2005 10:45:41 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 12, 2005 10:54:40 PT