Sat 16 Sept 2006 Lake Sonoma

by Matthew Marcus

We had a nice little group there, some of whom spent some time before dark speculating as to why there weren't more people. It cooled off to jacket weather, then to winter-jacket weather, but never got colder than that. In fact, I suspect that it warmed up a bit.

After doing some eye candy and bitching about seeing (I wonder if Lake Sonoma averages worse than other spots), I did some playing around in Lacerta, Pegasus, Cepheus and Perseus. Mostly, I revisted old favorites, but I got a few new objects in Perseus, notably some galaxies and OCs. I don't have the list handy right now so I'll spare the list the recitation of NGC numbers.

As usual, I was the Last Man Standing, leaving only when the moon got over the bush to my E so I could take a peek. Other 'last peek' items included M42, an attempt at the Flame (NG, too low and too much moon), and the Hyades. I'd already looked at the Pleiades and I think I could distinguish the Merope nebula from the Dirty Optics Nebula which appeared around all stars. The real one streams off in one direction while the others are circularly symmetric.

I left at about 0320, arriving home at 0500 or so.

mam

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