The CSCs were looking pretty good for MB yesterday afternoon while I
was at work, so I decided to head up there last night and skip the
usual Wednesday event, when things looked set to degrade for the week.
As I locked up the gate and left at 1:00 AM, I was still in my
shirtsleeves, and I thought to myself: not once did I even consider
adding another layer or even a hat. It was that nice. But then I had
another thought: one of sorrow on behalf of our Southern California
friends, because it is the same kind of warm fall weather (taken to a
Santa Ana extreme) that causes so much fire danger. Best wishes to all
SoCal TACOs and their families and friends.
I spent the evening with three first-time MB-ers. First there was
John, with a 10" Meade (an XL200, by the sound of it ;-). An
experienced observer, for sure, but maybe new to the Bay Area...he had
posted on TAC yesterday about a possible MB evening. John was also
providing some nice classical music during the evening...thanks!
A little later another pair walked in: Doug and Michelle, if I remember
their names correctly. Nice folks. Asked politely if they could drive
in, seemed to know the red light protocol. I explained a couple of
rules (must agree to leave when the last permit holder (me) leaves, no
smoking, etc.). They set up a 10" Orion on a big EQ mount and got down
to business, Doug with the 'scope and Michelle doing Messiers with
binocs.
The four of us had a great time. The transparency was only fair, and
the seeing started out soft, but it improved through the night. At the
end, I wrapped up by splitting Gamma Ceti, a challenge posed by Peter
McKone the previous night; I couldn’t split it Monday night, as the
seeing really sucked, but it was not too hard on Tuesday with TOBY at
around 300X. Nice double -- on the Deepmap list -- pretty close and
wide magnitude difference to boot. And easy to find because, you
guessed it: nekked eye.
We didn't see any Aurora, but we really weren’t on the lookout towards
the North, because of the big bad light domes in that direction.
John and I did see one very bright meteor just as we were packing up --
heading about WSW from the area of Cetus. And we both thought the same
thought: Hermes? No, not the asteroid itself, of course. But we had
both read that there may be some meteoric debris from Hermes as it
makes its close approach to Earth -- it is going to shoot by here in
the next few days at something like 0.007 AU away. Of course, since it
isn't quite "here" yet, it can't be from this pass, but perhaps some
debris left in its orbit from a past revolution. This meteor certainly
looked like it could have been traced back to the approximate area of
the sky where Hermes is.
Interesting world we live in! Huge solar flares, near-Earth asteroids
and their debris, deranged arsonists on the loose, and nice new folks
out observing in all kinds of weather.
Bob J.
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