Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wolf Creek Saturday Night
Hi Rob, I was at wolf creek last night. When I arrived around 9:00 it was pretty breezy, but it died down and by 11:30 it was dead still. Suddenly around 12:30 it really kicked up with a very damp wind. It blew so hard my truck actually shook. It made observing less joyful and by about 3:00 I decided to head home. Nevertheless, the sky was beautiful with no clouds. The light from SLC makes for a permanent twilight-like glow now (probably exacerbated by the higher-than-normal air pollution in the valley), but at the site the air was fresh and pleasant (combination of the scent of pines and the "after-a-rain" scent from the wind). Without the wind the temperature felt great for observing and I only used a windbreaker over my sweatshirt. Mike Bailey ************************************** Get a sneak peak of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
Thanks for the report, Mike. I'm getting more and more discouraged about light pollution. Let's keep our toes crossed for a nice, calm, clear August new moon period. Best wishes, Joe Olhomorto@aol.com wrote: Hi Rob, I was at wolf creek last night. When I arrived around 9:00 it was pretty breezy, but it died down and by 11:30 it was dead still. Suddenly around 12:30 it really kicked up with a very damp wind. It blew so hard my truck actually shook. It made observing less joyful and by about 3:00 I decided to head home. Nevertheless, the sky was beautiful with no clouds. The light from SLC makes for a permanent twilight-like glow now (probably exacerbated by the higher-than-normal air pollution in the valley), but at the site the air was fresh and pleasant (combination of the scent of pines and the "after-a-rain" scent from the wind). Without the wind the temperature felt great for observing and I only used a windbreaker over my sweatshirt. Mike Bailey ************************************** Get a sneak peak of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour _______________________________________________ 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.utahastronomy.com --------------------------------- Got a little couch potato? Check out fun summer activities for kids.
I think I was a little more sheltered than Mike from the wind that came about 12:30 AM so it didn't affect my observing. I was using my 10.1", f4.5 Dob. The sky from about 20 degrees up was spectacular. Probably the best I have ever seen the Veil Nebula without a filter, not as contrasty as the filter view but still very visible with many more background stars. The seeing was excellent and Jupiter at 200x was the best I have seen it all year with lots of details in the cloud belts and the red spot was easy. In my 15x50 IS binoculars the North American and associated nebulae were very good as was M31 and the double cluster. I also easily split Albeiro in the binocs. I was amazed at how good the sky was particularly with the recent fires. I would say two-thirds of the sky was comparable to Bryce and the seeing was better. This was the case until about 12:30 AM. Then we saw several large lightning strikes off to the east over the Uintas. Sometime later we heard the east wind before we felt it. I was situated behind the trees on the hill and didn't experience much wind - more wind noise than real wind. After the wind came both seeing and transparency declined somewhat, maybe we had some high altitude smoke blown back. But the sky was still very good. About 2:30 AM when we were packing up - it was calm again. Clear Skies Don
Nice report, thanks Don. I'm hoping I can get going again with astrophotograph in August. -- Joe
participants (4)
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Don J. Colton -
Joe Bauman -
Joe Bauman -
Olhomorto＠aol.com