On Tue, 9 Feb 2010, Craig Smith wrote:
Wow. Astronomy is not a hobby for wimps!
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com> wrote:
Great report. Did you have to battle frost on your scope? Thanks, Joe
When I put it back in the car, the tube was covered with frost. I put the cap on the EP and the tube when I sat in the car to warm up a minute. At no point was I getting exceptionally sharp star images. This may have been frost on the mirror or EP, but I think it was possibly currents in the tube: I think the mirror cooled fine, but there was about a 5-10 mph wind. I thought that I may have lost some collimation on the trip over, but when I got home and checked, it was still dead on. I had no means with me to deal with frost. Anyway, I think I have real refractor envy over sharp images. As is usual for me, all my observations are at 30x through a 6" f/5 reflector. I'm planning a planetary nebula binge, though, so I might have to go up a bit... - pr. MvO
________________________________ From: Michael Vanopstall <opstall@math.utah.edu> To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Tue, February 9, 2010 4:53:59 AM Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Another decent observing site
Hello --
I'm back home warming up after discovering a new (to me) place to set up.
I was going to go to my usual spot outside the gate of Rockport State Park, but there were two cars there already (?). So I decided to drive on. I followed the road into Oakley, and turned eastward on Weber Canyon road towards Smith and Morehouse campground. I stopped at the turnoff to the campground. I don't know what it's like underneath, but there was a good base of snow, so I just pulled off the road and set up. This was about 1:30-2:00, and I observed for about 1-1 1/2 hours, and didn't see a single car. Probably it's busier during camping season. Horizon is decent in all directions. No more than 10 degrees of obstruction, and mostly less. In the distant west, SLC looks like the sun is rising.
The site is very dark. Milky way, M31, and M33 were set, so not much to go on there, but the Beehive was very large and conspicuous. Conditions were not good. I think it was fairly humid. There was a constant breeze, and I'd ballpark the wind chill at about -5. My notes are etched in the paper because all the ink in my pens froze. I observed for about 30 minutes, got back in the car and had a cup of coffee, and then went out for about 20 more minutes.
I finished the Messier list with M83 (very bright, large), M85 (smaller, but with a very bright core), and NGC 5866 for an M102 replacement. I had picked up M49 from my backyard yesterday, forgotten on my last trip.
I've been working on Caldwell objects from home, but don't have anything much except a few of the open clusters, the Eskimo nebula, and the easier of the two globulars in Delphinus. So I targeted some galaxies. I wish it hadn't been so cold. I could probably have done 25 objects. I could have taken advantage of being able to _see_ Camelopardalis.
I got:
NGC 4038/4039 (Antennae) NGC 3626/3067/3068 (yet another trio of Leo galaxies) NGC 4559 and 4565 in Coma B. For some reason I failed to see NGC 4889. I blame the wind.
Anyway, the drive from Salt Lake is about 75 minutes.
---- Rev. Michael A. van Opstall Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Office: JWB 313 opstall@math.utah.edu
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_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com
---- Rev. Michael A. van Opstall Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Office: JWB 313 opstall@math.utah.edu