Observing report from Wolf Creek (Friday Night/Sat. Morning)
Several of us believed the National Weather Service's forecast for "mostly clear" on Friday night, but it turned out to be "mostly cloudy" instead. About to call it a night at 12:30 with no apparent hope of clearing, Quinn informed me that Provo Canyon was closed. Ugh. Wondering what to do, I noticed the sky starting to clear (finally). It opened up for about 2 hours, from 1am to 3am, and I managed to get the last 6 of my summer Herschel-400 objects, all open clusters in the small constellation of Vulpecula. Two of the 6 clusters I observed were especially lovely. NGC 6802 is a small rectangular patch of faint stars that fade to "nebulosity" that I found very lovely in the 16-inch. And NGC 6940 is a spectacular (and I'm guessing often overlooked) open cluster that filled the eyepiece (115x) with over 100 stars, and would probably be wonderful in any aperture scope. All the clusters are in very rich milky way star fields. Good company and some new friends made it worthwhile in spite of the clouds. I just need to remember to bring a pillow and blanket in the future... Rich __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
--- Richard Tenney <retenney@yahoo.com> wrote:
Several of us believed the National Weather Service's forecast for "mostly clear" on Friday night, but it turned out to be "mostly cloudy" instead [at Wolf Creek]. <snip> I just need to remember to bring a pillow and blanket in the future...
I went up Saturday night and found the picnic area covered in a mini-smog belt from wood-burning campfires, imitating the very characteristic of the Salt Lake Valley that I had driven up there in desperation to escape. A mile or so away, up on the Duchense Ridge on Forest Road 91, typical for Utah this time of year, the mountains had made their own weather. A band of clouds went from the southwest to southest and up to an alt of 30-40 degrees. The northern sky was molted with clear holes. Usually, these mountain generated clouds clear out at night, so I pitched a tent and set the alarm for 3:00am. I awoke to clear, dark skies with excellent seeing. The daily heat generated cumulus clouds had all moved over the Heber light pollution zone in the low altitude west. I worked the Aql and Cyg Barnard dark clouds until 4:30am (Aql - B128, 135, 142-143; Cyg - B352, 353). By that time, Aur and Ori had risen in the east and the zodical light was evident. Unlike the spring zodical light, which is more confined to a narrow ecliptic plane (20 deg in az), this summer zodical light was more diffuse. It covered 30+ in az and reaches a lower latitude (25-30 deg). I attributed the difference in size of the zodical light between seasosn to the different angle between this OP and the solar system's plane during the summer, as opposed to its winter-spring orientation. By 4:45-5:00am, advancing nautical twilight overwhelmed the zodical light. 3 bolide-type meteors on the Perseid radiant were seen. The show was over, so I crawled back into the tent, to be awoken around 9:00am by the sounds of several families of Ute Indians starting a breakfast picnic on the next bluff a couple of hundred feet away. One of the children was outfitted in traditional dance dress. Nice way to start the day. Maybe it's time to switch to Lakeside - until the monsoon season passes. But one can't get a break from the capitol city's oppressive heat in the west desert. - Canopus56(Kurt) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
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Canopus56 -
Richard Tenney