Conditions at Coyote last night

Bob Jardine

I had a fine time at Coyote Lake last night, even if it was a short night due to work today.

Four scopes there. All of them new folks to me, although they had all been to Coyote before. I went around and said hello and met the other three, but I failed to write their names down. One had a Meade Lightbridge (?), one had what looked like a TV-102 on an EQ mount, and one had a couple of little Orion scopes (a 4.5" Starblast, I think, and a small refractor). I had my 12.5" Portaball.

It was a little windy at first, but that eventually died down. A little cool, but not too bad. No dew. No clouds. Seeing was good to pretty darn good. Light domes were typical for Coyote -- not much fog in the valleys I guess. I didn't do a LM star count, but the SQM read 20.6 -- very typical for Coyote. Transparency must have been pretty good, as I bagged a few pretty dim suckers.

I said goodbye to Virgo for this year by picking up about a dozen galaxies that I hadn't observed before (along with another dozen or so repeats). (I also split 3 new-to-me doubles in Virgo as a warm-up while waiting for full darkness.) As Virgo moved over into the S and SW light domes, I turned to Serpens and finally Lyra for a few more galaxies and some eye candy. I packed up after about 3 hours of observing.

Not a bad night at all, considering how many times I've been skunked this Spring!

Cheers, TACOs,

Bob J.