Coyote Lake 2007.07.21

by Rob Jaworski

We arrived just as the sun was sliding below the hill to the west, enough light to set up by, but not long before it started getting dark.

There were quite a few scopes there already... maybe 20 of them? Driving into the launch parking lot area (nice that the launch ramp is actually closed for they year!), someone had set up orange cones/pylons, a line of them, behind which it seemed the scopes were being set up. Not sure what they were for, but was able to drive through a couple of them and set up in the most northernmost spot, next to Gary, SJAA board member.

Venus was a nice clear crescent, mistakable for luna.

Due to my having company, both personal and public, I didn't even try to work on my M list. One thing I did remember to do is look for the comet. Just before heading out the door, I memorized key pieces of this chart: http://media.skyandtelescope.com/documents/CometLinear_July07.pdf I should have printed it out since no one else there had a finder chart for the comet. It wasn't too long until I (think I) spotted it, hopping from M3. Rob Hawley came over and confirmed that must have been it.

The comet was very faint, much fainter than M3, my jumping off point for tracking it down. What was most interesting was that it seemed to be superimposed on top of a star; not exactly centered but the fuzziness was definitely covering the point of light. There was no discernable head or tail.

Here's the other cool thing of the evening: All night, my friend had been interested in the exact location of Ganymede. Main question was whether it was in front of, or behind, the gas giant. My guess was in front, based on absolutely nothing. Later in the evening, possibly around 2330 or so, he took another look, and there it was, just emerging into its own little circular body. We all got excited, I remembered I had the current month's issue of S&T, we looked it up, and concluded it WAS in front of its host planet. Seeing stuff move, over a relatively short period of time, is really cool!

We packed up and bailed just around midnight. I definitely gotta get out more often!

-Rob