Saturday night was one of those nights. Butt cold and wet. Next
morning, getting over the despair, I reminded myself that one of
these nights comes up each winter, so at least I'm still pushing the
envelope. Bundled up with a set of layers that usually suffices,
including the new Christmas thermals. It's the wet cold that knows no
barriers.
That said, there was fun to be had. Jolly group spread around the
Peak: At Coulter and Sunset Lot, the SW lot and all over behind the
ranger's house and up the Knoll. We compared plenty of views. Everitt
got the Horsehead again (about a year after the last time, at Dino)
in his 15 with an Ultrablock. M42 was showing pale reds and blues in
that same scope.
There was a guy new to the Peak, Derek from SF, who walked up with a
nice refractor on a sharp-looking wooden tripod slung over his
shoulder, looking for all the world like he'd hiked from the City
that way. He took some cool specific lessons from several of us in
teasing detail out of a galaxy, seeing the Horsehead, finding the E &
F stars in the Trapezium, and in sorting out the 7 visible orbiting
members of sigma Ori.
Otherwise I was using all my powers of concentration to keep fingers
in pockets and not drop stuff. Felix was sharing views but wasn't
shown anything new to him. Jardine did turn up NGC 1360, a
fascinating PN. I'd seen it almost exactly a year ago at Dino, after
spending plenty of time in the Fornax Cluster. The PN is at the NE
corner of Fornax. I'd first mistaken it for a long galaxy. Saw "A
bright rag with sharp foreground star. Fancy shape, big." Looked like
a pennant with ragged edges.
In Bob's 6" Orion it looked long and oval. Turns out that sharp
foreground star is the actual central star, ca mag 11.
Confounded the prophets by not only arriving well before dark but
leaving around 1 am on New Moon. Finally warmed up over coffee next
afternoon.
Getting wussier as the 50's proceed.
DDK
-- Jamie Dillon <*> <mavericks@No-Spam> http://www.winepress.com/jd1.htm "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog it's too dark to read." Julius Marx