Dan Wright made a plea for participants at Coe for Sunday. The crowd
responded, as many came and pulled up a seat at the Mars Bar -- shorts and
tee-shirt weather, 75 - 77 degrees, 25 - 30% RH, no breeze whatsoever.
Looked to be about 12 scopes and maybe 16 cars in the lot -- parked at all
the extremities. Scopes ranged in all shapes and sizes: a brand spanking
new AP MakCas here; a 22 inch Dob there; with coffee grinders everywhere.
Lots of kids and parents were around sneaking in views from the available
glass.
I think I confounded a few of the star party goers. My observing for the
evening was non-planetary. I managed to continue working Arp peculiar
galaxies (under mag 15) from RA hour 22, 23 and 00. Explaining the list,
the objects, and their interaction got me a few "Oh my God!" exclamations
from a few. I stayed away from Mars as it takes me too much time to recover
from retinal burns. Mars is a bright little critter!
The reward of the evening was my best view ever of Arp 319 = Stephan's
Quintet (NGC 7317, NGC 7318A, NGC 7318B, NGC 7319 & NGC 7320). All
components were seen and sketched. However, I'm not sure the improvement
was due to wonderful conditions. LM was a bit low (perhaps a 58 at the
zenith). Smoke and haze The sky was not very transparent. I think my
growing level of experience helped.
Another unexpected success was observing two of the three components in Arp
314. I am not accustomed to reporting targets in the MCG catalog. I was
able to record MCG-01-58-009 & MCG-01-58-010. The interaction was not
apparent in the FOV at 156X. All I could see was the shapes and positions
of the two galaxies.
One disappointment: Arp 50 (IC 1520, mag 14 in Cetus) eluded me, though I
was able to log fainter targets routinely. The murk prevented logging faint
objects.
I stayed till 4:30. The Great Obliterator prevented me from starting until
after 10:00 pm. The list is at times daunting for an 11" SCT, but I was
able to discern and sketch 14 Arp objects, may of which were compound
objects in busy fields of view, some with objects as faint as mag 15 (using
averted imagination).
I doubt we will have night as warm as this for quite a while, The last time
I remember one so warm all night was during a Labor Day weekend at Fremont
Peak, last century, in 1999. Two months until Halloween, four months until
New Years. Where does time go?