Hi all: Just got back from MB and what a night it turned out to be. I
arrived around sunset, 1650 hours, to find Marek Cichanski sitting in his
SUV staying warm while his (new to him) 6" Mak sat outside cooling off to
the ambient temperature. It must have been in the high 40's, so we both
added some layers when we got out of our cars. The sky looked very iffy the
entire trip up to the ridge. I can remember cursing a few times on the way
there. I set up my tailgate table and we had a nice sunset picnic. The
gear stayed in the cars, because we were not sure if the conditions would
improve enough to get some views in. Before we finished our supper, George
Feliz pulled in and joined us for dinner.
As the sky got darker the clouds didn't seem to get any worse, but they
didn't seem to get any better either. It didn't take long for George to
convince us that often times when the transparency looks poor, the seeing
can be good. George got his rig up in no time (a fine TV 85) and was giving
Marek and I an accounting of a nicely split double double. The seeing was
pretty good, even though the cloud cover only allowed us to see the planets
and some bright stars with the naked eye.
By astronomical twilight, Marek and I were set up and sucker punching to
some surprisingly nice views. The was just enough clear skies to keep us
interested. George suggested several great doubles to split and our iffy
night started to get fun. For a good hour, the cloud condition didn't
improve. We kept at some great doubles and a planet or two. Well, wouldn't
you know it, by around 2000 hours the sky started to clear up slightly. We
could make out several more constellations than at the begining of the
night. Within a half an hour of noticing the improving cloud conditions,
the whole sky opened up. Clouds disappeared and the stars came out. The
transparency improved by 90%. There must have been some upper level winds
to blow the clouds away, because the seeing got a little soft for a while.
Marek and George were setting up for some wide rich field views. We caught
glimpses of the entire sword of Orion, then entire belt of Orion, the double
cluster in Perseus and at least one more double open cluster. That was
really fun. We got the TV 85 down to about 20X and some really low power
views with Marek's Mak utilizing a Celestron 2" focal reducer.
Towards the end of the night, Saturn and M42 were positioning themselves for
some great views. By 2230 hours, Saturn must have been 50 degrees above the
horizon and M42 at least 40 degrees. I cranked my C11 up to 310X and swung
around to Saturn. There were many moments of good to excellent seeing
supporting the high power. The Cassini Division was easily seen.
Equatorial bands on the disk of the planet showed well. And Titan, the
great moon of Saturn, was definitely a tan disk. My first really great
views of Saturn for this season sure lived up to its billing as one of the
best objects to view in the sky.
M42 was, of course, just as spectacular. Although, the Trapezium only
revealed 4 stars tonight, the nebulosity was very bright and extended.
Maybe if we would have put more power on the Trapezium, we could have seen a
5th or 6th star, but we were content with low power views tonight (with the
exception of Saturn).
All in all the night turned out to be a great sucess. It just goes to show
what a little perserverance can do.
Casey