Big fun at Coe 11-17-07

Greg LaFlamme

Whatta night! Dan Kaeo, Greg Claytor and myself were treated to an amazing night at Coe. Long before the moon set at midnight, we were finding all sorts of great objects in an incredibly steady and clean sky. We shared many views with a nice couple that were interested in astronomy and I made sure they had fun with the scope/sky. They left the lot just before the moon set. How bright wasn't the sky you ask? My sqm meter normally gives consistent readings (during times of no fog) of 20.80 at Coe. Dark enough to see detail in our own MW but last night the thick dark-giving fog blanketed every city light within site and the meter read 21.15, the MW was sugary and the sky was perfect for finding the goods:-) Most impressive was the seeing. 9 outta 10 I'd say. Mars displayed its massive polar ice cap as well as some dark continental looking features. The features were dark, sharp and well defined and very impressive. Saturn was amazing in my 10" @ 457X. It looked like a computer generated hi-def image in my eyepiece and I spent over a half an hour with it and its moons. 6 of the 7 moons were putting on a show, Dione and Tethys were paired up like a double star right near the Western limb of the rings, quite a site. There was a nice dark shadow on the rings from the planet to boot.

Dan sat and collected ngc galaxies ranging from 9 to 15.5 magnitude in his 10" f/4.5. One of them he had to work at for over 30 minutes to confirm it. Its stellar core finally tipped its hand for Dan and he let out a very confident "found it". Good for you buddy! Greg C and I played around with the Ziederscope, a 17.5 " Dob loaned to him from the SJAA. He was told it was an f4.5 but I have a hard time with that one. I didn't measure it but I would guess its closer to f4.2. You can get a decent image from the scope but the primary has many bad zones that create an astigmatism effect in different areas and it shimmies every chance it gets but hey, its a 17.5, were amateur astronomers, so lets have fun!

I brought along my astrophotography rig and 10" f/4.5 dob between imaging, observing and sipping coffee, I never ran short of fun. We packed up at 3:50 Am and rolled on home. I'll spend some time today stacking images of M31, 33 and 42 that I collected throughout the evening and I'm looking forward to it:-)

GML

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