Sat May 3, 2008. A Fremont Peak night to remember.

Mark Johnston

OR: Fremont Peak Saturday May 3, 2008
Observations using Jamies 11" (felix) and mostly I used my 18" dob and 17mm,9mm Naglers.

Drawn by a change in plans combined with the Sat images showing cloud cover combined with the elevation of the clouds clearly below the peak on the KSBW webcam http://www.ksbw.com/wxcam/811980/detail.html . I'll try to present another view than Jamies already posted great OR.

Present as stated by Jamie were 5 scopes total with Jamie, Rich Neuschafer, Denis Lefebvre, Rod Norden and myself with still new big-dob.

I had spent the entire day doing a nasty under-the-house plumbing job from hell (Where was GregLF when I needed him? LOL) combined with a very busy work week before so the Peak was the Medicine I badly needed and it delivered. Haze was extending fairly high as the Astro-Van climbed the Peak and even near the SW lot some haze was clearly at that level but the muck was clearly very low and below the peak from San Juan Bautista view. Normally I look for the Peak from 101 south near Coe but haze was covering that view.

The night was from a Bootes star counts 6.0 or perhaps better later on. And although some people think SQM is garbage, I like it as 'one more indicator' so will state that the peak pulled out at best around 2am a 21.5 mag/ArcSec darkness reading which was best I have measured there.

Logged 23 objects and re-visited tons more mostly mentioned in highlights below.

Highlights:

Milky way was absolutely amazing at 3am and naked eye gazing was perfectly acceptable. Jamie, Rich, and I stood there gazing at the bands with clear seperation. By 3am it was high and darkness on both sides ... stunning. Did some random wide-field gazing near gamma CYG as well.

Earlier in the night several of my objects were from the TAC Eye Candy list which I had converted to MegaStar and had went through in detail last week to come up with a list of the 8 or so I had not yet observed from earlier sessions. Also browsed a few goodies while at it. Notable eye candy that stood out were the stacked galaxies of 5985 (at the base) then eliptical 5982 and edge on 5981 on top. Now I see above that is a 4th little guy 'on top' 5976 so I'll revisit next time.

Another fantastic area wad on and by M106 which was absolutely stunning and loaded with detail. I logged a large number of galaxies there and loved it. I am sure I had seen several before but just was having so much fun ... kept going.

Jamie has mentioned the area he called me over to see which was 3 and soon to be found 4 galaxies forming the tips of a cross and 2 more we discovered in the general areas just outside FOV. Cross was (in sign of cross form) a fairly diffuse 3:1 elongated E-W 4424 on top, the largest on bottom elongated in same direction was 4442 and to the left (in dob eyepiece) was edge-on 3:1 elongated at 45deg slant 4417 and finally off to the right (east) was the very dim (mag 13.7) elongated E-W 4445. The last two off to the S-E were 4451 and 4483 which were smaller. What was missed was 4380 but then again there are so many all about because 4442 is truely dead center in 'Downtown Virgo' you could go on forever ...

After 3AM, had a great time in Sag Star cloud, thanks Jamie for view through Felix-the-wonder-scope). I gotta say Felix has one heck of a fine mirror with excellent contrast. After seeing CAS rising over the trees pulled in 7789 with my new toy and even though low, it was great to see this favorite once again and with much detail. Also visited down south the Lagoon, Trifed, Eagle, and Swan all with 17mm nag and O-III filter and all stunning. Very near the Lagoon was a discovery of a huge blinking Red-giant ... oh wait, that was the radio tower's light ...

Lastly we saw our old buddy Jupiter up high enough to catch a nice pre-season view.

All in all the night was amazing