IHOP - Sat to Sun

by Dax Castro

Second...Thanks to everyone for sharing. My boys Mason (9) Sean (8) and DJ (6) and I All had a blast.

Thanks to a little help from my friends the NGC 6826 Blinking Planetary Nebula in Cygnus is no longer a problem to find. Winking at me as if to say.. ha ha... you couldn't find me. http://www.de-regt.com/Astronomy/NGC6826.htm <--about how we saw it in my 10" Maybe it was a bit smaller than this but close.

Great Big welcome and thanks to Dan and Renee for making me look like I actually know something. It is always nice when I can share something even though I am relatively a new astronomy addict.

A great bonus to Saturday night was the amount of meteors falling. There were some really close ones. One in particular was fantastic with a glowing blue trail and ending in a fireworks type explosion. Late in the night right before we turned in, Mason and I climbed on top of our van (thank goodness it held) and watched them fall for as long as we could stand with the breeze blowing. Counted 19 while we were on the roof and about 40 for the night during the 5 hrs we were up.

I was worried that DJ my 6 y.o. would have gotten bored but he hung in like a trooper. All day Sunday he was telling mom and the neighbors how "...we saw NGC something something.. I don't know Mom.. But it was really Cool. And we saw M31 and M57 and a lot of 'M' things Mom. It was soooo fun."

Myself.. well..Appologies for being so absorbed that I failed to keep the name of the gentleman with the 18"dob and the O-3 filter that gave me some amazing.. and I am not embellishing here.. AMAZING views of the Veil nebula and several clusters. I wanted to just sit there and look at NGC 6960 for hours, but I felt politeness was in order.. being that it was not my scope..and all that. But given the chance I would have lingered in its wisps and airy strands of cosmic splendor for eternity. It was (both sides east and west) truly a memory I will never forget.

About midnight, or maybe later, we noticed a fuzzy consellation just above the horizon and looked through a pair of binoculars to our amazement it was The Pleades popping up to say "Peek-a-boo" I had Mason go run over to our 10" dob and dial it in to verify and he said.. "yup. it is Dad. We havent seen that in a long time huh?" "Yes, Mason, it is mostly a winter constellation"."Cool Dad, Can we look at it from home on Sunday." I said "if you wanna get up at about 2am!"

Later that night I woke to a cresent moon and Orion. My winter friend had come out to see me. But the scope was packed up and I was on a mission of relief. ;)

We camped on the rocky rocky..rocky... did I say rocky? ground near the car crammed in our little 8x8 tent, but atop the deflating air mattress as I looked through the vent holes at the stars in view, I thought to myself, "These are the times we remember"

We woke the next morning to the hunters recorded wolf cries as it was bow hunting season for Elk (I think) and the boys never packed up so quick. I laughed and told them it was just recorded calls.

We drove home in the morning sun, all the while planning what we were going to do on our next trip up and what new things we would see.

Thanks again to all who put up with us, helped us out and were all around friendly.

Dax