Erik, Jay was just reporting on our little observing trip Friday-Saturday night to western Utah, not anything about SPOC. Sorry about the confusion. As Jay said, I had mechanical issues. Actually, more than only mechanical. I like to set up and have my cables straightened out before the light leaves the sky. However, I didn't manage that this time. As a result, my work table looked like a spaghetti bowl with cables. My flashlight was running out of batteries, which made the table even dimmer. Jorge provided light from his flashlight, but it didn't quite work because he wasn't always pointing where I was looking. This went on for hours, as I kept trying to get my focuser to work. At long last I realized that certain components for the focuser and the guider were transposed. I got them straightened out but then I was unable to slew because the worm that drives the right ascension gear had become loose. This was most evident when I had loaded the 'scope with a fair amount of weight -- guide scope, guide scope camera, main camera, etc. Desperately, I tried unloading the scope, so that I could get it aligned and then load it carefully. But it wouldn't even slew correctly in a stripped-down condition. At that point I just gave up; I know what's wrong and I know how to tighten the worm, but the telescope has to be taken off the tripod and wedge, and that wouldn't work at night. I'll take it apart and fix it today or tomorrow. HOWEVER: The night was beautiful and the company superlative. (Chris didn't even get mad when I threw my bag of warm clothes in the back of his vehicle, then climbed into the driver's seat -- thinking it was my Jeep. As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, I thought I saw my keys on the seat and stucl them in my pocket. Shortly after that I realized I was in the wrong vehicle, got my clothes out, and apologized. A little later folks started searching for Chris' keys and I realized I had pocketed them. So I had to say what happened, and I felt like an extreme fool. But nobody ridiculed me.) The highlights of the night were being with really good amateur astronomers, talking, and looking through Jay's 14" at the Eyes (which I had planned to photograph) and through Mat's 20" (I think) at the Owl. I also saw a wonderful galaxy field through Jay's, M104, a section of Markarian's Chain. Cold and discouraged, I slunk back into my Jeep (which is also back and which I had parked a little earlier near the spot where Chris eventually parked, though I had moved it before he arrived). I read the new Stephen King novel 11/22/63 on my Kindle until after 3. When I finally fell asleep my cell phone dragged me to consciousness; I answered it as someone hung up. I called the number back and it was a recording for something like Intermountain Auction, apparently ready to take my bid. So of course getting back to sleep was an awful, uncomfortable chore. -- That's my little report on observing on the night of Friday-Saturday. From: "erikhansen@thebluezone.net" <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2012 1:00 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Observing Saturday
This begs the question: Is the Grim fixed and operational? no word from SLAS BOD's on the subject.
I am heading out again tonight. Last night was just wonderful. M104
showed itself probably the best I have ever seen it in the 14. I was able to capture 18 objects from my list and sketch about 8-10 of them (I need to check). Tonight promises to be even better. We had Jeff, Mat, Josh, Joe and Chris, a visitor from Raliegh NC with us. Joe had a mechanical issue so didn't get any imaging in and he can talk to that. Temperatures were mild out on Forest Road 006, LM was around 7.0 to 7.2 out there and it was nice and dark. Lots of RVers around but no campfires and no disturbances, just nice and quiet.
I also got a great view of NGC 4038/39 the antenna galaxies and one tidal tail was seen coming off NGC 4038 (need to check my notes). Chris saw that with me. After Joe's equipment broke down he wanted to see the eyes so I star hopped to the pair of galaxies known as the Eyes and they stood right out next to their elliptical monster pair. Just a tremendous night. I'll post more details sometime in the week on my blog.
Tonight I want to go back to Vernal as we had no humidity and the temps were just wonderful. Let me know if you want to join me out there. Everyone got there fine using my directions from my blog. Oh, the sites had grass on them and that was nice (wild grass) and a surprise for Joe that Joe can mention. Then there was this thing about playing musical cars and disappearing keys . . .
-- Jay Eads _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
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