Planets from the Peak, plus Scouts and the Blue 22

Jamie Dillon

One big surprise, the Scouts were camped right next to the Blue 22! The Blue 22 is the stuff of legend, was already the subject of lore when I first started hanging out in the dark very close to 10 years ago. It's a 22" f/7 solid tube Dobs. Sucker's around 13 feet long. The blue sonotube forms the trailer when it travels. The two guys who belong to this instrument used to come up a lot. They'd show up beginning of a weekend, set up the scope, then party all weekend and let people climb up their rickety ladder. First time I ever saw M81 and M82 was thru the Blue 22. Impressive view too. Now apparently they have a better ladder. Life had intervened for a while, so we Peakistas were wondering if that behemoth was still in action. A relief.

All over the park, observers turned up. Tony Hurtado held down the SW lot. Marek and the Gator Chaser were on the pads, Ron Dammann ran the 30", and Rod Norden, yes the same ancient TACo extraordinaire, did the sunset show. Robert Armstrong, Joe Bob and I were in Ranger Row. There were other observers around as well. The Scouts really did feel welcomed and encouraged by everyone there. The boys showed excellent starparty etiquette as well.

Bill Drelling started the night with Kent Wallace's trick of turning the scope on M22 before it gets dark, to bring out the red giants in that cluster. Fascinating.

Joe Bob was all over several asteroids, he'll tell you about that maybe, after starting with this comet that was advertised as 9th magnitude and sure wasn't. I spent a lot of time looking at Jupiter, then Neptune and Uranus. Jupiter was striking, the GRS at meridian showed a very sharp rim all around. There were two flat long brown barges in the NEB, that looked as if they might have even connected. Neptune showed its electric blue color, and Uranus was blue-green and pretty. First time this year catching up on an annual visit. It doesn't cease to kill me that we can see disks and color in these planets at 3 and 4.5 billion kilometers. Also sat and studied ngc 253, and later the Orion Nebula which hasn't lost any of its dazzle.

Ranger Derek was off duty, his still new wife Hali got home late from work, and they stood around and shot the breeze for a good while. Very bright, engaging people.

Real fun night in all,

DDK