Camping at the Dark Sky Site (3-14-2011)

This week was Spring Break in Texas, so Monday night I took my boys camping at the Houston Astronomical Society dark sky site. I'd never been, and the moon would be about 60% full, so rather than try to set up for imaging, I decided to take Bigfoot, the 15" dob. We had a great time (Bigfoot, the boys, and I), and I learned several things I'd like to share:

1. Seeing matters to the big dob! A few weeks ago, I saw Sirius B clearly through the dob at 380x. I tried on this night early on, and at 190x Sirius would not even focus clearly. Seeing was lousy. In fact, anything over 80x was mush. Saturn just rising over the trees had a moon, Titan. There may have been others. As the night continued, seeing improved. By midnight, Saturn had four moons, but they'd twinkle in and out. By 6 am, Saturn had five moons (that were obvious to me without a chart), and they were clear as a bell. After midnight, when seeing had improved, I learned these other things:
2. The Telrad needs dew protection. It's harder to find things when the Telrad is dewed up. Bigfoot has no finderscope. I will build a dew shield.

3. NGC 2477 in Puppis is the most awesome open cluster! I used to think M37 was the best view. M37 must now yield. Images (and I have one of M37 myself) do neither cluster justice.

4. For starhopping with a big dob, Uranometria is pretty ideal. Sitting on the ladder with a red flashlight and a volume of Uranometria on my lap is slightly awkward, but the scale is easy with a big eyepiece on a 15" f/5 dob.

5. The Meade Series 5000 28mm SWA is a fine eyepiece. It gives a nice view in the f/5 dob. There is some distortion around the outer quarter of the view, but it is not distracting. Eye relief is enough for this eyeglass wearer. I could basically forget the eyepiece and observe. No coma corrector that night.

6. Only about two members of Markarian's Chain fit in my field of view at a time. I was just browsing around the field, not looking at charts, and found four members in a row before I realized what I was looking at.

7. M13 doesn't hold a candle to Omega Centauri! I have never seen so many stars stuffed into one place. There is hardly space between them! I flipped over to M13 quickly just to compare. Nope, no comparison at all. Actually NGC 3201 is also a better view than M13. Though dimmer, it is bigger and more impressive.

8. There is nothing like a dark sky. The moon went down around 3:30. I got up again at 5:45 for the final 45 minutes of darkness. Wow! It's been too long since I've seen the bar of the Milky Way dominate the sky like that. Under that kind of sky and with that size of scope, one gets lost in Sagittarius. Everything is interesting, and there is a hint of light, either stars or nebulosity, almost everywhere. Amazing!

Those are the primary lessons learned. I also starhopped to M85 and M64 for the first time. I'm still working through a Messier list (it's taken me 32 years so far; I have three or four left).

For those of you still reading, I also caught a nice conjunction of Jupiter and Mercury in the evening sky. They had evened up the next night, but on Monday night Jupiter on the left was still higher. Here's the image. Please click for the full size: