Saturday 8-2-08 at IHOP 4

Bill Porte

There was a good, fun group of 9 astronomers at IHOP Saturday night. The visual astronomers included Marsha, Alvin, Randy, John(from SVAS), Tony Franco, Schneor, and myself. The astrophotographers among us included Teri Smoot and Gene Kahn (who had arrived and set up on Friday). Conditions were very nice, with an estimated 6.7-6.8 Magnitude sky, excellent transparency, and good to excellent seeing. The smoke from recent fires was not a noticeable problem. Both Teri and Gene had a few equipment problems during the evening and had to modify their original imaging plans, but Teri got some good data on M106, and Gene did some nice widefield imaging of the Summer Milky Way. The visual observers all seemed to have very productive nights. My primary projects were going after the galaxy groups, galaxies, and planetaries in Cygnus, Hercules, Aquarius, and Pegasus with my 18". However, the night was so nice that I strayed from my original plan more than once, and ended up enjoying a great "smorgasbord" of objects all across the sky, from Hickson's, Abells, and ARPs to the ever-pleasing summer eye candy. Alvin generously lent me his ARP Guide, and I had a particularly good time hunting down many of these fascinating objects. Throughout the evening, we were treated to some very impressive meteors--mostly Perseids. There was also an ISS fly- over, and Randy caught it just right and was able to skillfully track its path with his 18" Starmaster. There was also plenty of good old visiting and view-sharing going on. The night flew by, and all of us stayed into the wee hours. I finally left around 3:25. It was great to get out again under such nice skies and with such a large group of fine folks. Clear skies. Bill