TSP Report: Wild Days...

Bill Drelling

...Or perhaps more accurately, Wild Fires. v I woke up just in time for lunch on Wednesday after another excellent all-night obseving session. A quick shower, lunch in the galley with massive injections of coffee and I was starting to recover from watching the sun rise for the second night this year. On Monday I had driven 900 miles, arrived at 1130pm and then observed until sunrise. Tuesday night was another one that was so good that you simply cannot force yourself to leave the field until the sun comes up. So I was exhausted. I'll reseve the saga of my RTMC/TSP road trip for later.

Anyway, as I walked out of the galley after breakfast/lunch at about 2PM, I saw a huge cloud of dark gray smoke in the southwest. Turns out a wild fire had started near Marfa--about 20 miles away from Fort Davis. Since they haven't had any rain here since the last TSP (that was a joke), the grass and shrubs are very dry. The wildfire burned about 20,000 acres that first day and came to within 10 miles of Fort Davis. The smoke and the ash blanketed the otherwise clear sky. It was a combination of odd, disconcerting, and neat all at the same time. Fortunately no one was hurt.

That night the transparency was definately substandard. There was a major lightdome to the southwest that was caused by the fire! It kept surging and then dimming every 30 minutes or so most of the night. The skies to the east were clear and dark, thankfully, due to the way way the winds were blowing. The surging and dimming light dome was caused by the fire traveling up hills with the wind at its back (blowing towards TSP) and then moving down the leeward side of the hill. It did not stop anyone from observing, but we all kept an eye on it and it was the topic of much discussion.

By Thusday it had burned 30,000 acres and was about 65% contained. It was still over 7 miles from the ranch. It had significant;y less impact on transparancy Thursday night as compared to Wednesday night. The skies to the west impacted, but only slightly since the winds changed in our favor. By last night the fire was appatently out and there was no impact on the skies whatsoever.

As for observing, it was still a lot of fun with lots of faint fuzzies. I bounced around between the 30" Obsession, the Yard Scope, and my astrophotography setup. We did see a lot of objects most of which were very faint galaxies on the various observing lists. These big dobs can make a 14th mag galaxy look bright under these skies.

the most noteworthy items were, surprisingly the Trifid, Lagoon, Inkspot and Eagle. The Trifid and the Lagoon were noteworthy for the same reason. Surprisingly, and perhaps unbelievably, we could see a slight tinge of pink in each of them. We looked at them through the 30" with a 31mm nagler. At first you think you are just imaging the color, but after looking a few times I became convinced it was there. It was very faint and slightly off from the brighter areas. My first thought was that it was an effect from the fires, but this was last night where there was no ash or smoke at all, Who knows.

The inkspot was prety cool as well. we "zoomed" right in so that it and the cluster next to it nearly filled the eyepiece. Very impressive objects. The cluster, as bright as it was, appeared buried in the background stars--the large scope made the background stars far more brighter than I have seen them. They provided a nice backdrop fo the open cluster. The inkspot, even at high power remained crisp with well defined edges. We were able to see a row of stars poking though the center of the central portion of the inkspot.

As for the Eagle, it was remarkable because one of the stars in it appeared to have moved. We were using an image in the Night Sky Observers Guide to find the various details of the Eagle when we noted that one star had moved as comparted to the image in the Guide. That is the first time I've found anything list that. It certainly happens, but it is neat to "discover" it yourself.

Tonight will be the challenge. Do I break down my gear and make it a short night, or stay up until the sun rises again? We have to be of the ranch by 10AM sunday. All god things come to an end. Too bad it happens so quickly.

Bill Drelling