Del Valle 4/5/05

by Carter Scholz

Asher Blum and I spent a productive three-plus hours observing at Del Valle on Tuesday night. Conditions were good, with fair seeing. Crisp views of Saturn with Cassini and a cloud band, and four belts visible on Jupiter in moments of steadiness. Five Trap stars. Transparency was not so good, with visible haze at sunset, and a limiting magnitude of about 4.0 - 4.5. It seemed to improve a bit around 10, then worsened again around midnight.

Asher explored downtown Virgo with his 8" Orion XT on an eq mount, while I used a very similar scope (Hardin 8" Dob) in search of H400 objects. At first I was shut out of any galaxy dimmer than 11, but as it got fully dark and the moisture settled I was able to go a bit deeper. Still, not a lot of eye candy here, with many of my notations reading: "4038 -- vague", "4027 -- averted only", "3982 -- barely there". I ended up with 19 new objects, mostly UMa galaxies, and PNs 2440 and 4361. Some of my nicer views were the PNs at about 150x, 3729 with 3718 in same field, and the elongated 3877 in a field with a triangle of stars including Xi UMa. I also stumbled across a very pretty non-Herschel OC, 2362, making a halo around a 4th mag star in CMa.

Asher gave me my first look through a 20mm Radian, which may have converted me to the Nagler mystique. Very impressive contrast, especially compared to my el cheapo eyepieces. He rounded up many of the usual suspects -- lovely views of M81/82, M51, M65/66/3628, M84/86/4438, M88.

Arriving before sunset is treat at Del Valle. I hiked up the hill to look down on white-tailed kites hoverhunting. We also had a rare daylight naked-eye view of the Bovine Cluster, last seen by Richard Ozer, Asher, and myself on Saturday 4/2. About 20 head of cattle came browsing by and stopped to gawk at us. Asher suggested, so as not to spook them, that we get in our cars, which they then surrounded, nuzzled, and tasted before moving off. My most detailed view involved large nostrils with siginifcant dark lanes, and saliva on my windshield.

Reports | About Reports | TAC | About TAC | Join TAC

Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 06, 2005 11:31:49 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Apr 06, 2005 21:32:50 PT