October 20, 2009: Henry Coe

Rogelio Bernal Andreo

Jim H. requested a small OR about how things went up at Coe on Tuesday night, so here it goes.

Short version: Payback time!!!

Longer version: The CSC was forecasting good clear skies all the way until 1am, so Al Howard and myself decided to take the drive up to Henry Coe. 8pm~1am is 5 hours. I can use that!! Especially after the hide'n'seek game the fog played on us last Sunday!

We both arrived around 8pm, and the sky was indeed nice for Coe standards. Nice transparency and ok seeing. No wind. Certainly humid and very dewy (though the dew went away after 2-3 hours). Temps in the mid 50's.

There was a mushy thing lingering over San Jose that stayed there for quite a while. Eventually, a thicker than usual fog completely covered all city lights all the way to Gilroy (no panorama photo this time though ;-)

The one cool thing about Coe is that when that happens, you can actually see it. At Montebelo for instance, you only feel it - which in practical terms that's all you care about - but you can't see the landscape turning from a sea of lights into a dark blanket of fog, and it certainly is a pretty sight, especially when the layer is thick. Of course, that contributed to the darkness of the site, reaching that spooky-but-nice feeling.

My eyes are crappy and I'm not good at measuring magnitudes. All I can say is that M31 was pretty bright naked eye, which for most of you of course means nothing :-)

As 1am was approaching, we noticed some high clouds slowly moving in from the northwest. At 1:02am sharp the clouds were getting over the zenith, and as scheduled, we called it a night. CSC nailed it this time.

On the way down, I hit the fog layer rather quickly, at around 1900 feet. I drove through the fog until at around 1100 feet elevation (all according to my GPS). That's 800 feet of marine layer making it all the way inland, which isn't bad.

A nice night overall and now I'm one session short from having enough data to finish my mosaic, which covers a section of Taurus and Perseus that happens to be filled with "STUFF". Let's hope the weather cooperates this weekend. The Moon goes to sleep around 10-11'ish but it's still doable. If the weather says yes, I'll be out there somewhere, hopefully some of you will too!

Cheers,
Rogelio