Hey Gang,
I've been a lurker for awhile and finally decided
to come out into the dark. :-)
Went to Montebello for the first time on Tuesday
night and was lucky enough to run into Bob Jardine and
another fine gent named John, and they were kind
enough to let me tag along on their permit for the
evening.
Seeing was so-so, but there were targets a-plenty.
Michelle and I managed some decent views of M27 (which
responds *very* nicely to a Lumicon UHC filter), the
ever-popular NGC-253 near-edge on spiral galaxy in
Sculptor, the nearby NGC-288 which is a BEAUTIFUL (but
*faint*) globular. This glob is kind of special in
that the core doesn't seem to be overly dense,
resulting in the abililty to resolve quite a few
stars. We also wandered to M92 in Hercules and John
and I spent a bit of time trying to optically chase
down the Veil Nebula. This is *FAINT!* Managed to
find a few whisps with the help of the UHC filter, but
plan to try again from a darker site.
Bob & John, I wanted to thank you both again for
helping me finally compare my optics to other scopes.
Bob, the Takahashi 5-mil eyepiece is *wonderful* and I
plan on getting one.
I'll definitely be making more mid-week appearences
at MB. Can't beat it for a 1/2 hour mid-week drive!
-- Doug
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