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Sol Star Date June 29 2011
Observer log Jim
I arrived at Golden State Star Party at 7:00 PM with distant clouds on the horizon. It was cold! The tent trailer went up quickly as darkness slowly made its entrance. Others in the group had their telescopes up and ready. I got my 12 inch Dobson up and ready. First up was the queen of the planets Saturn. Two moons and a shadow of the rings on the planet were visible. Clouds creeping in like an ameba eating the sky. The top of Leo was devoured. M65 and M66 glowed like fuzzy diamonds. The ameba was hungry but Scorpio glowed in the southern sky fighting off the dreaded beast of clouds. Ten O’clock and sleep captured my body. Dead and to bed.
Sol Star Date June 29 2011
Observer log Tim Stoffel
Wasn’t expecting to go to the star party today, but the weather showed significant improvement from the night before. Paul Romero and I traveled together and are camping together. It was windy and cold, which made getting my tent set up a challenge. I tried lubricating the legs on my ‘scope, but the lubricant I used made things stifferL. Once I had everything running, I first concentrated on testing a couple of new eyepieces I had acquired. I spent quite a bit of time looking at Gamma Leonis (Algieba), a nice double star, to perform this testing. I also looked at Regulus (looking for the Leo I dwarf galaxy, but also to just enjoy the ‘lion star’!), M4, M80, and a couple other globulars. Then the sky became dominated by ‘water vapor nebulae’, and my observing was over for the night.
Sol Date June 29th 2011
Observer log Andy D
The night started out ok, dew was heavy through. Before the sky completely clouded over I saw several M objects and I took a nice long look at Saturn and 2 of its moons. It completely clouded over just after 11pm. So we covered up the scopes and sat around talking shop just after midnight.
Sol Date June 29th 2011
Observer log Ron B
Ditto above, plus the sky opened up later at 3:30 till 4. Low views all around compared to home territory.
Sol Date June 29th 2011
Observer log Jeff Wolff
I saw clouds and cow pies. I wasn’t expecting any clear sky and was surprised to see the sky clear around sunset. We enjoyed early views of Saturn, several globular clusters.
The skies quickly closed in and obscured much of the good stuff. We did see M51 and M57 before calling it a night. I expect the next 3 nights to be great.
Sol date June 30, 2011
Observer Log Jim Fahey
Saw a super nova in M51 on the club’s 20 inch telescope! The night sky was a glow with the Milky Way. What a great clear night. New objects I can find, The Ring Nebula, and the whirl pool galaxy. Everyone was dancing from one point to another the seeing was so clear. I used my new O-III filter for the Vail Nebula. It works great!
Observer Ron B
I tried to find Mercury on Mountain Standard Time. Debugged mount some. Went to sleep.
Sol Date June 30th 2011
Observer log Andy D
I saw a bunch of new objects last night. I also visited a few friends. Here are some of the new items; Bug Neb, Cats Eye, Saturn Neb, and many NCG galaxies. I also revisited some old friends such as, the Swan, Lagoon, Vail, and North American Neb’s. All in all I look at about 90 different items and I finally went to bed around 2:30-3am.
Sol Star Date June 30 2011
Observer log Tim Stoffel
Beautiful clear night! But it started out kind of badly. I calibrated my ‘scope in such a way that the ‘scope turned all the way around, nearly breaking the elevation drive cable! While recalibrating, I heard a ‘pop’, it was the finder scope suddenly going way out of alignment. It took quite a while to get the finder scope reset. After that, there was lots of great observing. First, were the various galaxies in LeoJ, probably for the last time this season? Then, I took a very careful look at a few globular clusters, including M22 and M4. Then, I looked at a bunch of planetary nebulae in the Cygnus area. I took a break then, and looked at the supernova in the club’s 20 inch ‘scope. Although easily visible there, it was nearly impossible to see in my 8 inch ‘scope. I am still not sure I saw it. Then, I embarked on a long, careful look at the veil nebula. Although the view with my new OIII filter was stunning, I failed to find the ‘delta region’ of this beautiful object. After the veil, I looked at various emission nebulae, including M8 and M20. I was able to vaguely make out the structure in M20. I finished the night with a look at M80/81 and a number of showy globulars. I also took a very careful look at M11, and confirmed that I was seeing a lot of stars, and not nebulosity. All in all, a very fine night!
Sol Date July 1st 2011
Observer log Andy D
I started out the day looking through the clubs Coronado. I was hoping to see the triple “sunbow” again. Even through it wasn’t there the Sun was still very active. So far this was the best night. We took a look at the Supernova in the Whirlpool galaxy. The seeing was so good we were able to see the individual arms of the main galaxy. I then went on to look at 15 NGC objects. So far the lowest magnitude object I saw is a 14.5. I’ve decided to go full manual tonight so I’ve put away the 9.25 GPS and I took out the 80mm ED. Hopefully I’ll find something.
Sol Star Date July 1 2011
Observer log Tim Stoffel
We were treated to a really gorgeous evening, with cloudless skies, good seeing and good transparency. The evening started a bunch of people wanting to see the dust lane in the Sombrero Galaxy M104. The dust lane was quite visible in the club’s 20 inch ‘scope, but not my 8 inch ‘scope. Still, the shape of the galaxy was plainly visible in my ‘scope. The supernova in M51 was a different story. It was now clearly visible in a 12 inch ‘scope and glimpse able in my 8 inch. The view in the 20 inch ‘scope was wonderful.
Most of the rest of the evening was spent doing my ‘globular marathon’. I was able to view about three quarters of the 60 or so globular clusters I targeted.
I finished the evening with some viewing of the Veil nebula and the North America nebula through the club’s 20 inch ‘scope, and Jeff Wolf’s wide field refractor. All in all, a really memorable night of astronomy!
Sol Star Date July 1 2011
Observer log Jim Fahey
Last night June 30th was great viewing and I was overwhelmed with targets to look at. Tonight “seeing” was even better. The whirl pool nebula showed it arms clearly and the super nova was easy to see! I practiced going back to my new sky friends just to see that I know where they live. There were so many stars in the field of view it was sometimes difficult to tell where you were.
Sol Star Date 2011-06-02-12:04
Observer Mike Hopper
This is by far the BEST GSSP I have attended. Everything has been full of wonder I have never seen this many solar prominences and flares on Sol since I began paying attention to them about 10 years ago. We ASN have a Coronado solar telescope that we’ve been using every day since Wednesday. The activity on the surface continues to change with incredible displays. My visual activity is further stimulated by walking around and viewing other Solar telescopes in the neighborhood some better than ours.
The fun doesn’t end there, not by a long shot There are over a dozen of us representing ASN ,most with personal scopes & accessories, but wait the club owns one of the best telescopes made A 20” Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount with great eyepieces supplied by Jeff. All of us move from one scope to another not only to catch varying perspectives of the same object but also to see different celestial bodies. As the darkness envelopes us more we become further enthralled by the majesty above us. Specifically, the journey usually begins with Saturn. This is one of the first to appear previewed by Arcturus and Vega then followed by Spica ,Deneb & Altair. But let’s get to the good stuff. Since we’re @ the summer triangle we’ll stop at M57(Ring nebula), then move down to the Dumbbell M27, over to M104(Sombrero galaxy), on to the summer Super hit list in Sagitarrius & Scorpius.
Paul Romero was at GSSP Weds 6/29 thru Sun 7/3:
I had practiced with my ‘rig’ the day before departure, and …yes….everything worked for my astrophotography summer vacation. Later, I coordinated with Tim Stoffel for the ride up to Adin, and we arrived at 5pm on Wednesday. The main row was filled to the brim with ASN members, so we parked our pickup one over…on the ‘Neptune’ row, where we enjoyed beautiful views from the grassy knoll of the Frosty Acres ranch. Lest we break the “bring new equipment…bring clouds’ rule of amateur astrophotography, the entire star party slept under cloudy skies the first night. Thursday, we had better luck with our night skies….with little or no clouds. However, Tim and I both dealt with equipment problems. He with his slew and myself with what turned out to be a wayward autoguider camera causing the mount to stall. The problem solving technique came into play very handily as we started with checking voltage; then we checked balance of DEC and RA; and then we moved to the final solution….disconnecting the Starshoot autocamera. It was 3 am by the time I got my first subs of M51 (note this hour below).
The next day, Andy took me to the pool for the R and R, and then we enjoyed a hosted dinner and raffle. To top it off, Ron, Andy, myself, and many other ASN members were in audience for an excellent presentation on Medieval Astronomy by a respected museum curator. Later, I found out that my laptop screen broke, so my plans for AP were dashed. Then, about 11pm, a neighboring AP enthusiast let me borrow his 2nd laptop. He helped me with the software downloads and focusing the telescope. At 12:30 he said ‘bon voyage’ and I had just to download the Starshoot autoguider software and away I go. From above, the SSAG was a problem, and...Again…it is now. It took another 2 hours to find the drivers and get the ‘rig’ tracking. Again, as it was above, 3AM before I took my first subs.
There’s a whole variety of experiences in this trip, but the one I noticed and stood out was the LEARNING experience. I learned a lot…how to deal with people and how to work with new /never used before software…the ‘ole noggin’ was filled the brim with great stuff.
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