Shingletown, 10/13/07

by Shneor Sherman

At dusk, conditions appeared to be as forecast by the CSC - excellent transparency and good seeing under a clear, dark sky. Clear, that is, except for a long, thin streamer of smoke extending from the southeast to the southwest, maybe 5 degrees in apparent width, and a few clouds over Lassen and extending a bit to the north.

My 22" was set up, although I suspected my tracking would be off a bit as the tail of my platform was a tad too low (and it was). I began as I often do, with M57 while it is still a bit light, and at least partly due to popular demand, made a circuit of Messiers (M15, M33, M101, M51, M22, M16, M17, M8 (the last three with an NPB filter) M33 and NGC3371 and the ever-popular Stephan's Quintet (with eyepieces including a 30mm Widescan II, 13mm Nagler Type 6, and 9mm Burgess TMB). I could definitely see 3 galaxies and suspected a fourth. We also viewed, the Owl, M81/82 and I suspect a few more I don't immediately recall. At this point - around 9 or thereabouts - Teri asked to see NGC 891. I told her that this was one I did not know how to find right off the bat, so I hit the charts - Uranometria and others atlases - and looked for the galaxy in the wrong part of the sky for half an hour. By now several things had become obvious: 1. Everything was wet (Erik said that we had 100% humidity as measured by his meter) although I had no dewing on my equipment; 2. The sky transparency was greatly diminished and 3. Even when I looked for MGC891 in the correct area of the sky, I still was unable to find it.

In the meantime, Erik had some nice views in his 8", and fooled around with my 22" for awhile (found M13 and an unidentified galaxy in Draco).

Soon after, everyone else left. By 11:15, I retired to the cot and sleeping bag in my car and although I woke up a couple of times, the sky was not improved - so I just went back to sleep and slept until (True!!) 7:35 a.m.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained - right Alvin?

Clears,
Shneor Sherman