Pacheco

by Matthew Marcus

I can second that. I had business at my scope even before the sun went down. The moon was overhead, which put my C8 eyepiece at its lowest, kid-friendly, height. I had the Ranger out briefly to look at the sun but put it away when I realized that this non-tracking scope was attracting curious kids who would be disappointed not to see anything in it. Before it went in, I used it to check out a very cooperative bird (female bluebird, I think) which sat on a post for at least 5 minutes. Of all the sites I've visited, I think Pacheco is the champ for visiting wildlife.

The ranger (human, not Televue) came by to thank us for turning out in such numbers and to distribute some leftover food. Thanks for the veggie-sub! She and I recognized each other from last year. As with last year's event, she had to get up early next morning for a wildflower walk. If I lived closer, I'd probably have gone as well. The hills visible from the site were covered in flowers.

Of course, I started with the Big Three, the moon, Jupiter and Saturn. After the crowds thinned down, I began to look at some deep-sky stuff. With the moon where it was, Leo was out and Virgo pretty badly washed out. M104 was visible, but only a ghost of its usual self. Same for 4565. M81 and M82 weren't too bad, but by the time I got there, most of the public had already left. Also, these objects were placed such that you had to kneel or squat on the ground and look up through my eyepiece in order to see them. That look-up part would have been hard for kids. The TV55 Plossl I use for low power is tricky enough in terms of eye position without the added complication of an odd angle of gaze.

After 11 or so, when the public had gone, the die-hards played around with looking at some of the brighter DSOs. Jamie D. suggested the Ghost of Jupiter, which was on the meridian, and that was pretty successful even without a filter. In his scope (12"?) it definitely showed an outer shell. Of course, last week at Lake Sonoma, Steve Gottlieb's scope showed filametary structure between the shells. It was speculated that some of Steve's skill transferred to his scope, enabling ordinary mortals to see better :-)

Somewhere around midnight I decided to give up on deep-sky and look at the moon, trying to ID features in Rukl. Mare Tranquilitatis was on the terminator, so some nice detail was visible there and in neighboring Serenitatis. The wind was still kicking up a bit, so I removed the dew shield, which of course resulted in an early end to the evening. I left at 1:00. There was one other (sorry, forgot the name) who was still packing up and about to leave.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 17, 2005 14:09:03 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Apr 23, 2005 21:19:53 PT