Coyote Lake: Observing report.

by Greg LaFlamme

A public event was held Saturday night and not having attended one before, I'd have to say it went well. I selected M3 as the object for show and tell as it placed my tall dob in a position that would work for most heights of people. Also, it kept the moon light off of my rear focuser baffle. Only four people come over to take a peek and they were briefly instructed on how to focus for a nice view. One little boy told me all about how "this one time, I saw a thing that looked like a bird or something". The swan maybe? I slewed over so he and his mother took a look. It's funny, people would rather take an awkward position standing next to the chair, lean to the side, and use the wrong eye for the position their in:-/ I always explain that if you have a seat, rest yourself, you will have a much better experience and that is usually followed by "oh no, I'm ok". Oh well, fun just the same.

After the event, the moon dropped down, the lot fell dark and it was on! Coyote was wonderful and the best I have seen to date. It was very steady and the MW was surprisingly bright. Central star was sharp and ablaze in the Cats eye. Seemed like the perfect night to try the Ring nebula. Best view was at 440x No central star :( but their was a distinctly bright knot right in the middle and many field stars seemed to pepper the bright ring. Delaney explained that the knot was probably from a brighter star near the central star and I remembered Peter Natscher telling me that once before. Myself, Scott Baker, Mike Delaney, Matt (Marcus?) and a new guy also named Greg, bumped around in the Perseus cluster and thereabouts. Neat hunk of sky! Around ngc 1272, in my .47 degree f.o.v @204 we all counted many galaxies but Delaney counted over 14J I picked out about 12! Looks like they range between Mag 9.5 and 15.5. We talked about how it was Albert's birthday cluster then started tearing down for the night. The new guy Greg was really getting into it so our job was done and done well! We left at about 04:00 and I was in bed by 05:05. Really was a fun night.

Greg LaFlamme

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

OMG! Its full of stars.
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