by Michael Swartz
I arrived a bit late with my friend Gary to find Marek, Michael and Mark ( 3 m's ) already set up at the Montebello parking lot busily observing.
Gary and I set up my Plettstone 18" and joined the fun. As we got started I was not all that happy because the wind was a little stronger than I liked but I figured that since we were already there and I had gone through the process of scope assembly, columation and alignment I might as well tough it out. But to my suprise and delite the wind calmed and the sky got darker, the air got more steady and we enjoyed some pretty good views of our favorite eye candy. When Mars got high enough we all exchanged some pretty good views through all our scopes.
Around 11:30 Mars looked particularly good through binoviewers and a Teleview Mars-A filter. The darker land features and suble red hues of the planet were very clear.
Since I had my bino's in anyway I took a look at M15, M2 and M31. The two eye views of these were of course not as bright as with a single eyepiece but the illusion of 3-D was really cool. Some of the more suble features of these brighter objects really stood out.
The forecast was not very reassuring but the night turned out pretty good proving once again "nothing ventured, nothing gained". I'm glad I went. Thanks to the 3 M's and to Gary for being there, for the great views and friendly conversation. It's people like them on nights like this that make this hobby such a pleasure.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Oct 09, 2005 02:25:22 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 14, 2006 20:22:39 PT