by Ron Britton
I arrived and setup next to Bruce Jensen and his 18" Dob, later in the night after some of the public crowd died down I had fun looking at the same objects in Bruce's 18" and my 10" LX200GPS. Aperture envy was the only unpleasant side effect.
The public part of the evening was just great. A steady stream of kids took a look at Jupiter through my scope. The comments and question were a delight...
Mom: what do you see?Daughter about 8: A white fuzzy thing
Me: Let me focus a bit
Daughter: Oh wow... it has stripes!
Dad: What do you see?Little girl about 6: I see a space ship!
Mom: Are you sure? A space ship?
Little girl: YES MOMMY! A SPACE SHIP!
I had many more encounters throughout the night all reminding me what it is like to be young, if not in body then in mind, and take wonder in the night sky. I remember reminiscing with one young man about my days as a teenager in Arizona out backpacking with a small, really small, pair of binoculars and laying out on my sleeping bag and taking in all that was up there. Not knowing what any of it was or what someone had named it but just marveling at the grandness of it all. Guess that is were it all started for me... been a long time since I had thought of those days under the dark Arizona skies.
After most of the public attendees had left I wandered back over to Dan Wright's setup. I had met Dan when I first arrived, I had to introduce myself as we have the same telescope model. And I would personally like to take this moment to say "Thank You Very much Dan" for your kind words about me in your post on the star party.
After talking with Dan for awhile I found out that he was the one that had posted the very interesting report from the 2004 SSP about observing geostationary satellites. I was eager to see one but alas Dan was having a bit of a technical difficulty, as he explained in his report, and I unfortunately wore the wrong shoes to the event and my feet started to freeze and I had to leave before I would have like to and did not get to see one. Next time we meet Dan, you will get a chance to show me one. I am sure.
While Dan was troubleshooting his problems I went back over to my scope and was very please to still have Jupiter dead center in the FOV after a good 30mins away from the scope. Man I love this motorized, computerized, goto scope... just a whole bunch of fun!
This is the part of the night where I traded a few observations with Bruce. Saw the Whirlpool Galaxy, Eskimo Nebula, Ghost of Jupiter, the Comet Machholz, and a few more that I can not remember. I was having so much fun I did not take any notes for the night.
While the views through Bruce's 18" were of course much better than I had in my 10" I was none the less very impressed and satisfied with the views I saw Saturday night through my scope. I could see the outer and inner ring of the Eskimo Nebula, no detail in the middle but still more than I was expecting. The Ghost of Jupiter showed a nice blue hue and grew much brighter with adverted vision. The Whirlpool was a definite faint fuzzy but could make out the disk shape and the smaller disk of the companion galaxy. The comet was the faintest fuzzy for my 10". On the 18" could make out a bit of oblong shape, maybe the remnant of a tail? Could not make out more that a blob on my scope. But hey it was the 1st time I can say I saw a comet through my telescope.
Just as I was about to call it a night due to my un-cooperative cold feet I heard a few people saying they had the Great Red Spot in view. So I punched up the Solar System menu, scrolled down to Jupiter, hit goto and waited for the slew to end... a bit of focus... and my prize for the night... after years of trying to see the GSR through my own scope there it was!
I packed up and headed for home. Five minutes down the road my feet had thawed out and the rest of the hour and a half drive home was nice, although I did get rained on just as I got to about South San Francisco on 101N.
I went to bed with the image still in my head... The Great Red Spot... I saw The Great Red Spot!
Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 18, 2005 21:50:46 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Apr 23, 2005 22:27:27 PT