Lick concert night (MOS) Saturday

by Jeff Crilly

Most of the nights I've been up there its been blowing an annoying 15 mph, or so, and low temps.

Saturday was very balmy.. Short sleeves all night long. And honestly the transparency seemed about normal.

As for the fire -- the smell was real strong as soon as I got to the top of the mountain. I really feel for those folks that live up there as they need to keep the windows and doors on their homes shut all the time, and it gets quite stuffy during the day. The ash is also clearly an issue, though it does subside when the wind is blowing the right way.

As rich said, we did get a reprieve from the ash fall that was nearly "pouring down" at 6pm. After I set up the 12" (with the dew shield), the 5 specs (or so) of ash that made it into the dew shield were either on the dew shield interior, or on the corrector which was easily blown off periodically.

And since the domes were closed, we were able to show folks a few objects outside.. Turnout was (I'm guessing) about 50% (100 guests?), and we did have lines in the 10s or so. (In addition to the observing, there were two lectures going on.) Thing about Lick visitors is that they are sooo inquisitive, and also appreciative of what they are seeing.

Most of the night we sat on either M92 or M57; the latter was the object planned for the 36", so there was general interest in seeing the ring by a lot of folks.

Additionally, Rem did an extended history lecture instead of the normal 36" viewing. It sorta reminded me of the fogged out Mars night in 2006.

For a night that was very iffy to start, it turned out very good.