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	Observation Log

2000: Jul Aug Sep Nov Dec 2002: Jun Sep 2003: May Aug Aug 2000 Date Wed 8/2/2000 22:30 Moon 2 days From Morgan Davis Location La Mesa, CA Seeing 6 Temp 70 Visited M7, M8, M22 Trophies M27 Tried to find M4 near Antares, but it didn't jump out. The limiting magnitude at that declination must have been pretty low, which is no surprise. Most of Scorpius has been washed out from the sky glow from south San Diego lights for several days. M4 is supposedly one of the easier targets to spot, too. Tonite's new trophy is M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. Guess what? It looked like a faint, fuzzy, gray rounded-rectangular blob. It was nearly at the zenith, requiring me to move the tripod legs slightly. That threw off the alignment, and conditions worsened as the moisture increased making any additional efforts futile. Date Fri 8/4/2000 22:45 Moon 4 days From Morgan Davis Location La Mesa, CA Seeing 8 Temp 70 Visited M4, M6, M7, M8, M10, M11, M13, M16, M17, M20, M21, M22, M27, M39, M71, M72, M73, M92 Trophies M23, M25, M27, M30, M55, M72, M73, Uranus Great seeing tonite. I could tell as soon as I stepped outside and looked up. The stars were popping out even with a crescent Moon low to the southwest. Kristi was the astronomer's apprentice tonite, getting a lesson on Scorpius and Antares while I aligned the scope. During setup, we saw a chunky meteorite break up as it winked out. She earned 10 Grand Master points for correctly answering the question: Why does the Moon have more craters on it than the Earth? She has the patience and potential to get really good at this. Once aligned, we began to clean up the southern skies in a junior marathon session that included Scorpius, Ophiuchus, Sagittarius, Saggita, Scutum, Cygnus, and Vulpecula. I was able to spot M13 and M92 in the 7x35 binoculars. Brother Ryan joined us a bit later and manned the computer to select potential objects. Later, Kristi got a quick study of Cygnus before turning in. Ryan and I continued to sweep the constellations leaving nothing undiscovered. Every item attempted was found, even the faint open cluster, M73. In less than two hours, several new items marched onto our trophy shelf, including Uranus. To us, it appeared as a solitary, nondescript star-like speck about 6th magnitude. One word summed up the evening: wow! More nights like this, please! Date Sat 8/12/2000 02:30 Moon 12 days From Morgan Davis Location La Mesa, CA Seeing 8 Temp 69 Visited M31, M57 Trophies M34, M45, M42, N869, N884, Saturn, Jupiter, Perseid Meteors Kristi and I went out early to see the Perseid meteor showers. We caught about 25 to 30 streakers during our three hour session. They seemed to originate in the east heading west. The night sky was fairly dark for San Diego, with an orange Moon hanging low to the west, which set around 3-ish. The western half of the sky was clogged with the usual marine blanket. After training the scope on Vega, which was low in the west, a quick peek at M57 (Ring Nebula) was impossibly faint. Overhead, north and east were clear. Unfortunately, our house obscures a good 40 to 50 degrees from the horizon of the north and east, so only certain objects could be seen. In fact, we had to wait with much anticipation for Saturn and Jupiter to rise over the rooftop. That gave us time to explore Caldwell 14 (Double Cluster, N869 and N884), two adjacent open clusters. We also explored several items with binoculars, including the beautiful and expansive M45 (Pleiades, otherwise known as the Seven Sisters). To the naked eye, it resembles a mini dipper. We could easily resolve its major and smaller stars with the 7x35's, and surveyed its breadth in the scope with a low-power EP. We turned the binocs upward to the fuzzy smudge of M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) as it was too near the zenith for the mount. The Great Orion Nebula was also obscured by the house, but we could peek around the side with the 7x35's to get a glimpse of its diffuse nebulous center and younger stars. The thrill for the night, and perhaps in all our observations thus far, was Saturn. I picked it up first in the 25mm EP and immediately switched to the 9mm for a closer look. It's bright yellow disc contrasting against the black sky clearly resolved the rings, Cassini Division, central core, and two or three moons. Saturn's overall shape looked like a Frisbee standing on edge vertically, at a 40 degree edge-on angle. The ring and central core melted together in luminousity which made it hard to determine the ring's orientation. A very slight shadow from the ring appeared to fall on the left half of the planet, giving the Cassini Division slightly fuzzy indentations that could only be seen with averted vision. I would guess that the closest edge of the ring was on the left side, and the right half was obscured behind the planet. We watched it and sketched it for about 10 to 15 minutes. We then moved a few hundred arcminutes down and to the left to focus on Jupiter. Other than the Moon, this was the largest object I've seen. About three moons were clearly resolved. It shared a similar yellow cast to it, and was very bright. Two obvious darker bands ran across it near its middle, from about 1 o'clock down to 7 o'clock. With persistent observation, a slight buldge in the mid-latitude band could be detected. Great Red Spot? I'm not sure, but I think that is more at a lower latitude. While these two brilliant planets were an awesome and exciting sight, I was left wanting clearer focus and more contrast. We packed up around 5AM when the eastern sky began to brighten. Overall, an excellent session, and Kristi was an equally excellent companion who made terrific sketches. Bonus! See Kristi's log entry for tonite, coming up next. These were done completely independently -- no collaboration. Date Sat 8/12/2000 03:00 Moon 12 days From Kristi Davis Location La Mesa, CA Last night when I read that article about the meteor showers, I knew I wanted to see it. My dad did too. So, I looked on my Starry Night program and it showed that the Moon would set around 12:30 AM. So I tried to stay up. At 12:30, I looked outside and saw that the Moon was way up in the sky, so I went back to my program, and realized I had been looking at the wrong time, therefore setting it ahead to the wrong time. I got it to do it right, and it showed that the Moon would set at around 3:30AM. I got off-line, and headed to bed. I knew I wanted to see it, as did dad, so I would wake up when I saw the Moon was low enough. My bedroom has a large sliding glass door that because of the way my bed is facing, I see West. The Moon sets in the west, so when I saw it was near to the horizon (around 3AM), I got out of bed and headed upstairs. Dad and I went out there, and we realized that there were tons of stars we didn't know about, so my dad went back to get the telescope. That decision turned out to be the best we've made yet, I think. I recorded all I saw, and I'm pretty excited about it. Messier (mess-ee-ay) Objects spotted: M31 (Andromeda), M34 (Open Cluster), M42 (The Great Orion Nebula), M45 (Pleiades). Pleiades looked like a "Tiny Dipper", and that's what some thought it was. It is also called the "seven sisters" because of the seven stars visible to the naked eye. We also saw Caldwell 14, a Double Cluster. That was really something. But the real excitement came when we realized that the two awfully bright stars out East were really Saturn and Jupiter . Because of the unfortunate position of the house, we had to wait until these two planets rotated ever the brim of the roof to where we could see them without having to practically lean back off the railing to see over the roof. Saturn was the coolest thing I've ever seen. It was the highest (above Jupiter), so we got to see it first. It was a pale sienna color, and it was nearly vertical. The rings, if on a clock, were at 1 o'clock to 7 o'clock. It was about the size of a pea in the telescope, but it was the neatest thing. We could see at least two of its moons, just tiny dots surrounding this large planet. So, we had seen Saturn. Dad and I then proceeded to wait for Jupiter to come into view. It was the brightest thing in the sky, besides the Moon which, because it was going below the horizon had set orange, so we hoped we'd see it clearer and bigger than the previous planet. Sadly, we were wrong. When I looked in the telescope, I saw a large, round ball - bigger than Saturn - that had two faint band going horizontally along the center. Again, it's moons were visible, but only 4 definite ones. Even though it wasn't as good as I had hoped, I still reminded myself that I was looking at the largest planet in out Solar System. A little later, we looked at M42, The Great Orion Nebula. Once the little computer attached to the telescope located and went to M42, we realized that we could see it with the naked eye. Normally, I had seen nebulas through the telescope, and that was the only way I could see it. But to be able to see it with my naked eye, I though was pretty neat. We tried to locate a few others that would have been very neat to see, but they were all in the west, where the haze and city lights made it impossible to see the brightest stars. I looked towards the east, and noticed that the sky was turning from black to blue. Dad saw this too. The sun was coming up. We tried to search for a few more things, but I think the upcoming sun made it more difficult. We turned in at 5:15 AM. We had stayed out there for 2 hours and 15 minutes. I had a great time, but was getting very tired and cold. I'm glad I went out there, I would have missed so much. I think there's going to be the same thing tonight, I might try, but we'll see. Date Fri 8/18/2000 22:15 Moon 18 days From Morgan Davis Location Big Bear Lake, CA Seeing 9 Temp 59 Visited M4, M6, M7, M8, M10, M16, M17, M20, M21, M22, M23     Our first evening in Big Bear for a little R&R! The conditions were cool, clear, and dry. No telescope, however. From the driveway of the Alpenhorn bed and breakfast, I used a new pair of 12x50 Bushnell binoculars ($39 from Costco, and surprisingly decent for the price). The best view was to the SSW, dodging thick clusters of pine trees. Several globulars and nebulae in Saggitarius and Scorpius were easy to spot in the binocular's wide field of view. Many of the brighter ones, such as M7 (Ptolemy's Cluster) were obvious with the naked eye. The crystal clear sky and dark night made the nebulousity pop out like I've never seen before. And, of course, the Milky Way was as clear and bright as a milky brush-stroke against the blackness. Infinite stars no matter where I looked. Simply awesome. Date Sat 8/19/2000 21:45 Moon 19 days From Morgan Davis Location Big Bear Lake, CA Seeing 9 Temp 55 Visited M4, M6, M7, M8, M10, M13, M16, M17, M20, M21, M22, M23, M31, M92     This afternoon, we visited the Big Bear Solar Observatory. Despite the complex nature of the science involved, I was surprised to see several large groups of people lining up to wait over an hour for a guided tour. BBSO researcher, Leonid Didkovsky, provided an informative tour of the telescopes and helioseismology equipment in and around the facility. From the angle of the scope in the center photo, this picture was taken after 5pm, the same time of day when we were there. Daytime temperature was in the mid-high 70's. Click on the Location field for a map of the lake. Use the zoom feature to magnify the manmade peninsula on which the observatory is perched. As kids twenty-some years ago, my brother and I walked across a frozen Big Bear Lake to its northern end to see the observatory from a precarious perspective. For our last night in Big Bear, Dawn and I drove out to a wide open parking lot near the edge of the lake. This afforded unobscured views of most of the sky in every direction. Although I only had the 12x50 binoculars, all the southern beauties listed in Friday night's entry were a treat to behold, plus easy-to-spot objects like M13, M92, and M31 were found. Andromeda's nebulous expanse was clearly obvious, even to the naked eye, unlike any views back home. I enjoyed the clarity and impressiveness of the sky, though I was sorely wishing for my scope. Perhaps next time. Date Sun 8/20/2000 20:15 Moon 20 days From Morgan Davis Location La Mesa, CA Seeing 6 Temp 73 Visited Venus     Just returned to San Diego from our weekend at Big Bear. Spotted Venus low in the west just after sunset. Too much junk in the atmosphere to get a decent look, and the scope didn't have any time to cool down before it set. Not considered a trophy since viewing was so poor.