Another fantastic time at Plettstone

by Greg LaFlamme

Lets start with the food.. Paul Plett is a master hamburgersman and hell of allot of fun. The hot links were delicious as well:-) Few people are as fun and as informative as Michelle, they have a great place up there for sure. During the day I watched Michelle and Albert combine super-forces to drill some holes in a mirror cell that Albert is building (I took pictures,,, I know, I'm a dork;-) Carter Scholz and I spent time with Albert during the day going over DSS images of the Galaxy clusters I had worked the night before. I learned so much. Albert is so willing to spend his time helping me and others along and his data-based information and kindness is irreplaceable. Whether its discussions about scope building, or the night sky, he da man and one of the coolest people I've ever met. Marsha stopped by for a night and I listened to here and Albert discuss Oz. Yet another fun person. I spent quite a bit of time with Rashad, going over pictures and discussing digital workflow on the laptop. The man is one heck of a photographer and knows his stuff, I really enjoy talking with him. Carter Scholz brought his home-built 12" F/5 Highe design and he did a great job making one that breaks down into tiny little pieces. Its amazing how much stuff he can bring with him in a tiny car. After seeing how Carter does camping, I'm questioning why I need a truck. We had a great time working the sky together and again, I learn... Ray Cash arrived on Saturday and that night, he gave a tour of constellations to a couple of newbie's that drove up from the bay area (Manny and Mosha). I just had to join them, listen to Ray and learn a few star patterns myself;-) Later he introduced me to Jones 1! I oogled that Pn for a half an hour....Thanks Ray! Manny and Mosha are super-nice people and new to the hobby. With the help of Michelle, they learned the sky as they pushed her personal 16" around, knocking off eye candy everywhere. I couldn't help but listen in as she helped them find objects and I know they left with great memories and a great start on the hobby.

The nightly breakdown in a nutshell: LM was between 21.42-21.58 over all three nights.

Thursday night was a bit soft but that never slowed us down and we saw allot of objects and had a great time.

Friday night was very transparent and very nice until around 1:30 when a funky, smoky haze covered the sky. Observation was still doable but it was not the sharp shy we had been enjoying earlier. Oh well, we sat around, and I listened to them all talk about old times and I heard some funny stories:-)

Saturday night started off perfect just like Friday did, in fact at one point, I heard Albert from the darkness say "its like shooting ducks in a pond",, or maybe it was in a barrel? Either way it was really great time and the faint little galaxies were popping out easily for the most part. I would hop to an area where something was supposed to be and work that averted vision, after a few seconds, boom, a four or five little slivers of light would appear. Then move to another then another. I hopped from one clump of galaxies to the next with the occasional help from a star or an asterism marking them off as I go. Later that darn funk came back for an hour or so but it went away again. I finished up the night with Carter Scholz hunting faint globs in Delphinus and chatting with Michelle. What a great time and it reminded me of the Matrix when Neo learned Kung-fu in 10 seconds but I ain't Neo, and this ain't kung-fu:-) I'm looking forward to the next trip up!

Greg LaFlamme