by Bob Jardine
Not normal for a Monday. I was thinking of going to MB on the usual Wednesday, but the weather outlook wasn’t good. Just as I was pondering, a message showed up on TAC from George Feliz about going that night. Thanks George, for breaking me out of the inertia. It was a fine night.
Albert, George, and David Kingsley helped make it an enjoyable night. Fun conversation and nice sky. It was clear and cold, but tolerable, not terrible, cold. Typical MB light domes. Not a hint of dew. The Coyotes were really performing an outrageous chorus once or twice in the evening; and they were close -- George even spotted one crossing the parking lot not far from us.
As usual for MB, I didn’t bother with searching out faint fuzzies. A few double stars, one asteroid, the moon, and two planets.
(Most of my observing was done with the Mag1 Portaball, 12.5” f/5.)
| Moon | Messier & Messier A and their rays, crater Cauchy, Rima Cauchy, and Rupes Cauchy, and craters Taruntius, Cameron, daVinci, Watts, and Lawrence. Seeing was pretty good for down that low. |
|---|---|
| Mars | we checked Mars out at various times using various combinations of scopes and eyepieces (5mm Tak LE, 5mm Nagler, 7mm Nagler) and filters. 7mm gave 226X in my scope, and 5mm gave 317X. |
At about 8:00 to 8:30, we saw a running dog with an occasionally wagging tail. Hind legs were Syrtis Major, tail was (usually) Mare Tyrrhenum, head was Mare Serpentis, front legs were Sinus Sabaeus and Meridiani. Hellas was usually prominent (on the dog’s back). The wagging tail was due to Mare Tyrrhenum and the features between it and Hellas coming and going with the seeing. As they would alternately come and go, the tail would seem to wag.
A bit later, the dog disappeared (rotated out tail first), to be replaced by other features. At around 11:45, we got an occasionally good view of Margaritaville and a subtle hint of Mare Acidalium or Niliacus Lacus (probably the latter, being more Southerly?). Meridiani was on the CM. The seeing ranged from fair to good (mostly pretty good) with occasional glimpses of very good.
Between sessions with Mars, I split some dbls and tracked down an asteroid:
| Phi Tauri | wide dbl, nice colors (gold/blue). PA about 260, secondary is 2 mags dimmer, splits barely at 45X, wide in 9mm (176X). |
|---|---|
| 37 Ceti | another wide dbl. PA about 300, secondary is 1-2 mags dimmer, yellow/white. |
| STF 101 | this was just an anonymous double on SA2000 but in the same FOV as 37 Ceti; I looked it up later and found that it was Struve 101; closer than 37 Ceti, but still splits easily at 93X; much dimmer secondary, PA is a little closer to North than 37 Ceti, say about 310 or so. |
| 66 Ceti | closer than 37 Ceti, but still splits at 45X. PA about 240, 1-2 mags difference, both yellow. Used 9mm mostly. |
| 60 Echo | asteroid in Orion (69 Orionis was in the same field) -- estimated at mag 10.5. Detected movement over about a 2-hour period. Used 17mm mostly. |
| Saturn | finished the night with a fine view of Saturn & 5 moons, all |
| 5 (and a bonus star) on the same side | an interesting, unusual configuration. 7mm (226X). |
Posted on sf-bay-tac Dec 08, 2005 11:25:19 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 16, 2006 22:34:58 PT