Coyote Lake 9/2, poor seeing but good friends

by Christopher Hendrie

The Coyote Lake lot was quiet for most of the evening. When we arrived about 8:40pm there was one non-astro group with bright lights and lanterns at the ramp end of the lot, but fortunately they moved off to do something lake-related for a few hours and took their lights with them. It's been really warm so T-shirt and jeans sufficed for me the whole evening.

Seeing was unfortunately poor, so I didn't spend a lot of time on Jupiter. Towards midnight we noticed Fomalhaut in the south twinkling so violently it seemed to be pulsating in brightness. Looking at it at 200x revealed what truly "bad" seeing looks like: diffraction circles warped into an unrecognizable froth of bouncy light. It was beautiful on its own terms if we disregard the consequences.

I started with most of the obvious "star party" objects, because they're most impressive in my 100mm refractor, and because I can reliably find them without spending a long time poring over charts. I'm still very much a beginner, and the goal was to impress my friends with the sky, not with my acumen. M22 and other bright globulars were well-received, as was M31. With guidance, both my friends were able to see the companion galaxies M32 and M110. Random satellites entertained us too, and turned out to be helpful as accidental "pointers" for indicating to each other what we're looking at: "OK, now the satellite is moving from the wingtip, and it's going to pass behind the tail of the Swan...".

I was surprised that neither telescope nor binoculars were the main attraction for my friends. They spent the most time poring over the monthly constellation charts from the front of the Cambridge Star Atlas, learning their way around the sky. It was a good reminder for me to step away from the eyepiece and get the bigger view. This would have been a great occasion for a green laser -- no other observers were present, and it was sometimes quite difficult to explain where an object was.

On the drive over I endured the usual set of questions about astrophotography. For some reason most people who hear that I've gotten into astronomy are keenly interested in whether and how I take pictures. I don't know why it bugs me.

My new object for the night was M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. I wasn't even looking for it: I had no idea it was so big and bright, and I found it accidentally while scanning the milky way. Earlier we managed to view M57, for which most of the challenge is operating the telescope near the zenith. I tried to catch the Veil again, but waited too long and couldn't find it through zenith clumsiness; I plan to get a narrowband filter soon to make planetary and emission nebulae easier.

Ergonomically, I'm no so thrilled with my alt-azimuth refractor for shared viewing. With an adjustable chair, I've gotten speedy enough at throwing myself around to suit the swinging eyepiece, but with three observers of radically different heights (I'm 6'5", I suspect the shorter of my friends is around 5') it was just too much. I suspect a moderately-sized dob would have been easier for everyone to play with.

Just as we were packing up, the moon started to rise over the hills. Everyone was stunned (and half blinded) by the view through the telescope, despite the poor seeing. It was a dramatic finish to an enjoyable night out.

I have a few ideas for next time about how to make it even more enjoyable to introduce friends to the sky:

* bring a user-friendly planisphere or whole-sky chart; show people how to use it before getting to the dark site.
* bring a foam pad or similar to make lying on the ground comfortable (lying on the pavement was a popular way to get relaxed binocular views of Lyra and Cygnus)
* consider a green laser pointer
* get to know all the constellations better, not just my favorites
* bring more and lighter pairs of binoculars, 7x50 might be easier than 10x50s.
* ask San Jose to turn out the lights. :-)

Regards,
Christopher