MB 4/27/06

by George Feliz

By my count there were 9 scopes for a total of 68" of aperture and a pair of big binos (82mm each side). Aperture King was Lee with his 20", f/5, while Coolness Factor went to Charlie with the homemade 6", f/15 refractor and mount. The HighTech Prize went to Jurgen and Lars with a 12.5", f/9 R-C on an AP1200 mount that they were using for imaging.

Highlights of the night:

Views of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 between the shield of Hercules and Corona Borealis were easy in any aperture (including small binos). This approximately mag 7 (and still brightening) comet had a nice tail that would have been more spectacular from a darker site. There was no hint of the breakup yet through our scopes. It's moving quickly through Hercules, so catch it soon (unless you're a night owl or early morning person).

Pentti finished up his Messier tour with his 5" Mak-cass by bagging a handful of Virgo galaxies. Well Done!

Omega Centauri showed up with with decent seeing near the horizon and some resolution.

Saturn and Jupiter held up to quite a bit of magnification (I used ~ 180x with my homebuilt 10", f/5) with a steady Cassini Division and GRS.

Rich N gave reports on the Sharks game. At 3-0 the lead seemed comfortable. The comeback to a final of 5-4 had us concerned for Lumpy D's health...

For myself, it was great to be out in comfortable weather with fine company, still skies and plenty of galaxies to hunt in Virgo and Coma Berenices.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 28, 2006 13:43:44 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 May 02, 2006 20:12:56 PT