Montebello 29 June 2005

by Peter McKone

Montebello was just about perfect last night. 6 or 7 people set up telescopes, plus two with binoculars. I remember talking to Marek, David Kingsley, and George Feliz. Sorry I failed to get full names of the others present. Temperature was 75 degrees at sundown, and 68 degrees at 2 am, when we left. I didn't see any jackets. Seeing was ok, but not great. Two arc seconds was about the limit. Bone dry. No wind. George estimated limiting magnitude to be at least 5.5. I easily saw all the familiar galaxies near M84 and M86. I didn't find the comet, but David showed it to me in his 14" StarMaster, and it looked like a mag 13 galaxy. If it were any dimmer, we would need a darker site. (And we have one in mind, don't we?!) NASA was certainly correct when it decided that this comet would need a boost in visual magnitude. How did they know?

Towards the end of the evening I was doing eye candy around Canes Venatici. M106, M63, etc. Couldn't believe how bright M94 is. Really looking forward to being able to see some dimmer galaxies next week!

Posted on sf-bay-tac Jun 30, 2005 12:35:38 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Sep 26, 2005 19:41:01 PT