Well, now I'm a little bummed I didn't come. My wife and daughter had already planned something together so I could have come, although it was better that I was home as we had a piano tuner here and he didn't get done until 7, so they were able to leave. After I dropped my other daughter off at a party, got gas, and ate dinner it was 8. I wasn't sure I wanted to try to find it in the dark, didn't want to ruin your dark adaptation, and was pretty tired. And I couldn't tell if the clouds had parted or not -- I could see some stars but not many. When I looked at the transparency radar it didn't look that good. So I spent the evening measuring the field of view of my current eyepieces. Kind of a tricky process. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Jay Eads Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 2:17 AM To: Utah-Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Pit n Pole Conditions Weather and Dirt We arrived at Pit n Pole at 6:00p.m. tonight, a friend and his two brothers and I and set up. The sky was partly to mostly cloudy. By 7:30p.m. the clouds had parted except to the north and we have a wonderful view of the south-east, sourthern and south-west to western sky. We didn't do a Messier but all of us ended up bagging a wide assortment of emission nebulas, open clusters, galaxies and I got a couple of PN's. Dion a member of SLAS arrived around 9:00p.m. and I believe he was able to check off about 12 to 15 Messier but I'll let him speak to that. I have pictures. Highlights from the night: M1 Looked pretty well out there M42 More wonderful in a darker sky The Flame Nebula The Horsehead with a H Beta Filter (we saw the notch or C as my friend called it) Thor's Helmet (visible without a filter with more detail with averted vision, OIII enhanced it) NGC 2903 Spiral Galaxy which gave a wonderful and bright view NGC 2968 a Galaxy in Leo Minor and NGC 2964 a Spiral Galaxy in Leo Minor. Great views NGC 2859 another Galaxy in Leo Minor. NGC 3003 another Galaxy in Leo Minor. NGC 2683 an pretty edge on galaxy in Lynx The Leo Triplet was terrific and NGC 3628 stood right out, no problem see that one in the FOV. M108 and M97 showed easily in the scopes tonight. I also completed about 10 other Herschel 400's with some sketches including some more galaxies. Around 11:40p.m. we looked up and the clouds had come in so we packed it up and at 12:15a.m. or so we came home. So it wasn't a lost for a night and we enjoyed ourselves. Sounds like everyone else did also. Jay On 2010-03-13 06:01, Joe Bauman wrote:
That's great, Jay. Nice and dry. I had some worried myself this morning about driving out to the western desert to look for trilobites and their relatives, but the desert was nice and dry. There were patches of snow in a very few places, and the north face of a nearby foothill was covered with snow, but the road and the place I went were dry. Best wishes, Joe
Here is a link to the pictures I took this evening from Pit n Pole or Rush Valley.
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