MB

by Mark Bracewell

Last night was one of those perfect nights at Montebello. It stayed warm until the wee hours, 2:30 when I finally left. The seeing was excellent, at times perfect, my scope was performing very well after a long rest, I haven't been out since CalStar last October, and there was a plethora of treats to observe.

My main intent was to get some good views of Jupiter, and I was very happy to catch a shadow transit just as it began. Extremely crisp and inky black shadow, elongated a bit on the eastern limb at the beginning. Seeing oscillating from perfect to OK about once per second, it could have been a little tube current as well, as there was a breeze blowing right in the bottom of the scope and the seeing seemed synchronized with the gusts a little bit. As good a view of Jupiter as I have ever seen though any scope.

Marek and a couple of other folks were up there providing good company, and a woman named Nora who had come up for the sunset (and missed it) stumbled upon us and was treated to a bunch of great views, so we got all the stimulating 'wow!'s and intelligent questions one gets from a good public night, without any of the hassle. That was good.

Marek suggested we have a go at splitting Antares and we both did with ease, he with a mask on the M scope (who needs a 7" apo when you can have a 100 pound obsession?) and me with the little dipper 10" cranked to 600x for grins (at this mag also saw proper airy disks for the first time through the 10 near zenith, so used to seeing them in little refractors, that was a treat the seeing made possible). Jupiter through the M scope with the mask was also a great view, no spikes and a hair more contrast than I was able to get.

The usual summer eye candy was on display, the southern Milky Way was almost 'dark sky site' quality, just a little granular. Even the north wasn't too bad with all the little dipper stars clear. Mercury, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter all at the same time naked eye, Saturn through the scope a little bit at twilight, good view but too low for comfort..

It was a good welcome back.

Gee, I'd sure like to take that job at NASA, but I'm an asp.net programmer :(

Somebody hire me please :)