by Jeff Crilly
It was a howling up at Lick also. Fortunately we were on the east side of the building, which was fairly protected.
The evening started off early - in late afternoon with some fine views of the near star with the PST. There's a nice sunspot... Rich and I noted the nicely defined "black thing" next to the "bright white thing". ... and a couple prominences.
Temps: 46F all night long, with the humidity between 60% and 80%. Indeed, quite cold.
Fairly 'gray' sky - not enough light suppression going on, plus the 1st quarter moon was not helping. Word was that friday night it was quite dark (with that thick fog).
Most of the night was spent showing the public M13 and M17 in the 8" SN and 15" dob, respectively. We also looked at the bright stuff like M57, M27, ngc7331. The 36" was showing a very nice saturn nebula. The visual night outside ended up with the Helix in the 15 w/ the OIII.
The racoon was, as usual, being a nuiscance. I'm sure he detected food in my vehicle and was just waiting for the opportunity to leap in and rummage. Fortunately, last night I was sharp enough to keep the doors and windows closed.
I stayed on the hill after the program ended, and ran some tests w/ the new 'guide camera', which seemed to work better with the new drivers. Unfortunately, polar alignment was rather hasty, plus the wind may have been a bit brisk. I'm not expecting much out of those images.
Orion rose in the wee hours... its a bit early in the season to image in Orion... sunrise is not much later. But I was pleasantly surprised to be able to get about 15 minutes of exposures on the m42 area. I'm looking forward to capturing this area with the modified canon 300D.
While taking darks, I zonked out in the car, and awoke to sunrise over the 120 inch dome. After a bit of a breakfast snack, I finished packing the vehicle and took a leisurly drive down the hill.
Grant Park was fogged in, but open... so I took the opportunity for a quick toor of that area. The birds were out and about, getting the morning eats no doubt.
Traffic on sunday morning sure is a pleasure... it was nice taking the slow sunday drive down the hill, and back to town.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Sep 11, 2005 09:39:25 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 12, 2006 14:49:36 PT