Fremont Peak (FPOA) Observing Report, July 5, 2008

Peter Natscher

I was up at the Fremont Peak State Park ­ the FPOA area along with five other scopes on the observing pads entertaining 20+ summer astronomy class students from Hartnell College and a large visitor crowd. The transparency and seeing was good enough for us to show everyone fine views of summertime celestial eye candy. I was using my 10² Mak-Cass telescope. We got last glimpses of Saturn and Mars before they drift behind the Sun in a couple of months. After twilight fell in the west, there was a striking 3-day old crescent Moon with earthshine, bluish Regulus, orange Mars and yellow Saturn all in a closely oriented line in Leo the Lion¹s shoulder. What a sight! Later on at 11pm Jupiter was high enough in the east to show Io in a fine shadow transit across, and right over, Jupiter¹s brown N. Equatorial Belt between 11pm and 1am. Because of the contrast between bright Io and the darker brown belt it was trailing over, Io and its black shadow were easily observed throughout its entire transit over Jupiter. I bino-viewed the event at 450x and it looked fantastic. The seeing improved greatly after midnight so that I could see even more fine Jovian surface detail. I tired out and curled up into my sleeping bag by 3 am. It was a very good observing night up at FPOA with a good summertime crowd. The threatening Basin Fire smoke from Big Sur was kept well south of Fremont Peak by the mild prevailing westerly wind. There was a warm temperature inversion which kept the the Peak¹s temps. at 65-70°F all night. Woopie ­ Summer is here!

Peter Natscher
Monterey