Hi Folks,
So, last Saturday, I determined to go to a darker-than-at-home site to
do some observing and invited a whole bunch of people to come if they
were so inclined. Seemed like I'd ultimately get 4 or 5 people to come.
I made what I thought was a crystal clear map of how to find the dirt
"park" just a couple of dozen yards down Provo South Fork Road from the
Trefoil Ranch gate. The I uploaded the map to a web site and sent out
the link--and then I promptly changed the name of the spot where I'd put
it so the link wouldn't work. Sheesh. Got that fixed and only had one
person tell me the link didn't work.
One of the excuses for going was to see some action with Jupiter's moons
between 11 and midnight. So, since I figured there might be a number of
folks, I decided to set up my Celestron 4" achromat as well as my 6" ED
APO. I set up the 4" on the mount and was about to put an eyepiece in
when I realized the screw hole for the tension screw to hold the
eyepiece in place was empty. Looked for the screw in the car and on the
ground. No luck. Took down the 4" and the mount. Set up the 6" (always
handy to have another pair of hands for that, but I've done it by myself
plenty of times; just takes longer). Fussed with getting the electronic
mount polar aligned. OK. Made it; no one had to stand around waiting for
me to get set up.
Well the seeing was not good at all (that spot has generally had decent
seeing). Jupiter and Saturn were at a medium boil. There's no cell
service from there so I couldn't let anyone know not to bother to come.
One of the people was expected at around 10. Well, it turned out they
and one other person actually drove up (as far as I know). Neither found
me!
So, I mostly waited around (not knowing it was to be a lone-man
evening). I checked out a few DSOs but the sky was brighter than I
expected along with the poor seeing. Double sheesh. Mount wasn't holding
alignment well at all. Had to redo alignment multiple times. Frustrating.
It got to be enough later than 10 pm and the only cars I'd seen that
hadn't turned into the parking area where I was set up just went up to
the Trefoil Ranch gate and turned around--not really practical to go
stand in the road, wave them down, and ask if they happened to be
friends. But it got close to 11 so I waited for the reappearance of the
moon from eclipse (or so I thought). Turned out I'd remembered the event
incorrectly. It was reappearance from occultation--and with the limb of
Jupiter being so fuzzy from the poor seeing, it was several minutes
after the predicted time that I could finally see the moon separate from
the disk; not a gradual appearance that I might have seen with good
seeing. Ho hum.
So, that night was pretty much a bust.
A couple of nights later, having equipped the 4" scope's diagonal with a
screw from Lowe's (not ideal, but a stopgap while I waited for the
McMaster order to come), I decided I'd just have a look from the front
yard (acorn streetlight kitty-corner across the street and all). Set up
the manual mount (no fussing with alignment) and popped the scope on.
Seeing was pretty darn good! There was Callisto just having finished a
transit and its shadow clearly visible on Jupiter. Called a couple of
folks who live nearby and 2 friends plus one of their kids all had good
views of Callisto's shadow right up until the point it disappeared from
the limb and enjoyed some decent views of Saturn too.
All my great plans came to nothing and just a grab-and-go view was
great. What a hobby!
Clear (and steady) skies, Friends!
John
