[sac-forum] Table Mountain Star Party report
- From: stevecoe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: "az-observing@fre" <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:56:39 -0400 (EDT)
Howdy all;
Well, I am back in "civilization" in a small RV park about 30 miles north
of Yakima, Washington. I am stuck doing all the mundane things needed
when you have spend over a week in mountains--shower, wash clothes, pay
bills...like that.
The Table Mountain Star Party was lots of fun, great people, decent site
and fair weather. In 8 nights I had two good night, two fair night, three
nights spent peeking among clouds and one horrible night. I will get the
horrible night out of the way first, it was 39 degrees and the wind was
blowing 20 mph and up. I did not last long.
On the fair to good nights I got a lot of observing done. Much with my 6
inch Celestron refractor, some with other people's telescopes. I spent
several hours with John, who has a very nice 25 inch Dobsonian. We looked
at bright stuff and then some not so bright stuff. NGC 6888 (Crescent
Nebula) in Cygnus was very nice with the UHC filter installed. Pretty
bright in that much aperture and the arc of nebulosity was easy at 100X.
The star party is well run, the food is excellent and the site is just
plain beautiful.
Saving the best for last we got an unexpected bonus--aurora borealis! It
was not a big, bright display, remember the Sun is in a quiet period.
But, it was certainly the best aurora I have ever seen. That is not too
difficult the two Arizona aurora I saw were just barely above the northern
horizon and just a red glow. This is light green, about 90 degrees long
along the north eastern horizon and has several streamers that were
perpendicular to the main display. The main strip of the glow was
underneath Perseus and the streamers poked up to the Double Cluster or so.
All in all, lots of fun;
Steve Coe
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