by Dan Wright
To my right were Kevin Roberts, Kevin Schuerman, Michael Swartz, plus Jim Everett himself, while on my left were Peter McKone and Bob Jardine -- fine gents all. See? A good night already and it hadn't even gotten dark yet.
We were thinking maybe we should have gone to the peak instead. But we comforted ourselves by saying things like, "it's probably windy up there", and, "the fog could rise out of Salinas and envelope the peak -- I've seen it happen". But secretly we were afraid the fog would envelope us. Well -- at least we had no wind. Barely even a breeze.
Kevin Roberts opened his brand-new laptop, then he and Jim Everett fiddled around with The Sky for a long time trying to figure out an esoteric aspect of the software: how to turn off constellation boundaries. But Kevin eventually got it, then with his new Tap Plastic in place, he was off and running.
Michael Swartz assembled and collimated his new Plettstone scope and aligned his ServoCats, while his wife and kids orbited around making frequent interjections. Jim lent a hand. There was also a nice Asian lady I'd never met before who arrived by herself and set up a small dob on an equatorial platform. She had the clever trick of using a magnetic clip to stick charts onto the metallic OTA near the eyepiece for easy reference.
Joe-Bob was working on H2's, and spent time hunting an elusive cluster in the middle of the Milky Way in Lacerta. He explained it wasn't really that small, but was probably considered challenging because a person must pick it out of so much Milky Way stuff. McKone joined the hunt, and I can't remember how it turned out -- did you guys eventually bag that cluster?
I had never observed with Jim Everett before. He's a heck of a nice guy. He told TAC stories going way back, so I guess he's been doing this for awhile. He contributes wit and wisdom to every conversation.
I opened Mullaney's Celestial Harvest and turned to the pages about Cassiopeia. One reason I like this author is that he goes right into doubles before even mentioning deep sky stuff, and I happen to think doubles are beautiful.
So right up front we have Eta CAS, nicknamed the "Easter Egg Double" -- this earns an exclamation point in the author's ranking system, and it's always been one of my favorites.
Next Mullaney says Iota CAS. This triple also earns one of the author's exclamation points. Select quotes:
"Tight triple system"
"Impressive little trio!"
"Golden yellow, lilac & purple"
"One of the finest triple stars the sky has to offer".
The book collects quotes from Noted Observers Past and Present, including both of the Herschels, plus Lord Rosse, Smyth, Chambers, Webb, Struve, Pickering, Barnes, Olcott, Burnham, Harrington, Eicher, O'Meara, etc. Quotes listed after each object are unattributed, so you must guess which great observer wrote them.
I skipped past other doubles in CAS to arrive at M52. Quotes:
"Rich sparkling clan of at least 100 suns" [Isn't "clan of suns" a great way to describe an OC?]
"Needle-shaped inner region"
"Beautiful cluster, somewhat triangular"
"An 8th mag topaz star embedded in the apex, as is frequently the case"
"Lovely 'bird-in-flight' group, like popular M11 but less bright"
"Of singular beauty"
"One of the richer & more compressed OC's"
Throughout the night I had the chance to observe M52 in Bob's 12.5 PortaBall, Grimly Fiendish's Orion XT, and Michael's new Plettstone dob. But I gotta tell you, although my perception is biased, my favorite view was through my 10" SCT, Denkmeier II binos, and 24 Pans. Makes me feel better about sticking with this equipment, when according to this hobby's natural progression, by now I should have sold all my scrappy impulsively-bought beginner equipment, and be using either one honking big dob with a few select eyepieces, or a top-notch APO on a Losmandy or AP mount with a full imaging setup.
Next was NGC 281 -- a "big, subtle, overlooked diffuse nebula". I had actually never seen this before.
"Embedded multiple star system consists of 8th-mag primary and three faint companions of 9th and 10th mag".
"Large faint nebulosity near Eta CAS"
"Complex glow with a handful of stars"
"Large, faint, amorphous mist surrounding multiple star Burnham 1 ... a triangular blur with rounded tip"
"At least a 10-inch is needed to appreciate this interstellar fog"
This object was too large to observe in my main scope, unless I wanted to really switch things around or put on a focal reducer, so my best view was through my "finder" -- an El-cheapo 4" achromat mounted atop my SCT. NGC 281 appeared best through my 35 Pan (yup I insert 2" eyepieces in my "finder"). A 2" Lumicon UHC filter brought it out even better.
Ah-Oh! What were those great blobs of fog doing, rolling in along the lake and obscuring the horizons? And hey what was this dew collecting on my black chair? Oh crud, here we go. Well, um ... those boys at the peak, um, they're probably getting blown away by the wind -- somebody'll find their paper charts in downtown Hollister :-)
Michael disassembled his dob, and we hoped this would be the sacrificial break-down that would improve the weather. For awhile it seemed true because the fog went down a bit.
But at 11:30 or 12:00 we really started to lose it (actually the zenith stayed pretty good). My equipment cases got dewed. Pages in Celestial Harvest stuck together. I accidentally sat down on a sopping black chair and got my butt wet.
Mars and M45 rose, and god those Pleiades made an awesome sight in binos against the rugged black mountain horizon. They looked clear and steady, because they weren't actually that low by the time they cleared the eastern hills. See? Here's an advantage of Coyote -- you can say the eastern horizon is blocked by hills, or you can say by the time something comes up, it's dang near high enough to be presentable.
Peter McKone and Joe-Bob packed up and said their good-byes to everyone. Then we were down to just Grimly Fiendish, Kevin Schuerman, and I.
As a final fling, I invoked a Meade "Guided Tour" named "Tonight's Best". My goto precision was good enough that every object landed in my eyepiece, so I was able to visit all the following in short order:
Packed up and left at 12:41. My driveway, funny enough, is precisely one hour distant from Coyote plus or minus just one minute. I mean, it took me 1:01 to get there and 0:59 to return.
Sorry I didn't show up at FP Sunday, where according to Jeff's posting, "Wagner and folk" would be doing the SW lot.
Best wishes to everyone for observing during this new moon holiday weekend.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Sep 05, 2005 01:18:50 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 10, 2006 21:44:44 PT