Willow Springs Last Night

by Peter Natscher

I've just arrived back home at 9 am in Monterey after a great Friday night observing up at Willow Springs. I logged, described, and sketched 12 more H II's getting me past the 200 mark (half way to 400), and will hopefully log and sketch ten more tonight. This will finish all the H II's I can observe until the winter constellations come up. I observed H II's in Andromeda, Pegasus, Aries, Triangulum 'til 2 am. I will observe ten H II's in Pisces tonight.

The seeing was to die for last night at Willow Springs. Very dark with sub-arc-sec resolution with my 18" Starmaster. There was a 5 mph breeze up on the ridge lasting past midnight before settling down. The marine fog off in the distance to the north and west subdued the Gilroy, Hollister, and San Jose light does by midnight. We were high and dry at 60 degrees and low humidity--no dew or wet paper on my table sitting under the stars. I observed until 3 am and found it hard to stop because of the great darkness. I did a limiting magnitude count with the stars in Pegasus right overhad at 3 am. I found this to designate a magnitude limit for me at mag. 7.2. WoW! There were so many stars inside of the Pegasus Great Square they looked like suger granules against a black background. It was just great! I am going back tonight for another fantastic night. Thank you SJAA and Bob (the land owner) for giving us this great astronomy site.

Peter Natscher
Monterey

Observing Reports Observing Sites GSSP 2010, July 10 - 14
Frosty Acres Ranch
Adin, CA

OMG! Its full of stars.
Golden State Star Party
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