Equipment:
Obsession 20" dob with Orion 80mm Short tube as a finder
Eyepieces: Nagler 22mm
6" Discovery Dob with 18mm Meade SWA EP and a home made Baader film solar filter.
Orion "VISTA" 7x50mm binos on a tripod via a "L" mount.
Atlas: Bright Star Atlas 2000
Site: Near Carnifax Battlefield Park, Summersville, WV
The weather was iffy but the satellite showed clouds on either side of the state and a South to North airflow. And I had an invite to a friends place near Summersville sooo…
I arrived at 2PM. All were out boating ( White Water Kayaking on a creek with high water – many 1000 cfs ) so I set up the 7x50 binos on a triopod and enjoyed views of the river (The Gaulley was about 11800 cfs and no one was on it – "Postage due" was completely under water. Wow!) and the turkey vultures.
About 4PM I set up the 6" and showed sun spots to various folks as they returned to camp.
About 5:30 went over and built the 20". Various people stopped by to look. After a great camp dinner with the crescent moon about 2 hours above the horizon I set out to where I’d built the 20" earlier in the day. The horizons were limited by trees. I collimated and the burned my eyes on the moon.
People started drifting over and I headed for M53 in Coma Bereenices. We looked at this and then I showed them the moon. "Now I know what you meant when you said that we were going to burn our eyes on the moon."
I put M5 in the EP, by now there was a line. The response was the same. Person after person would ascend the ladder … "Wow" "Amazing" "Ohhh" etc. I waited for M13 to rise over the trees.
I hit M4 before it vanished in the trees. Then on to M80. All noted that it was much dimmer. But they hung around in anticipation of M13. We viewed M13 followed by M92 (a personal favorite). Both received rave reviews.
I wanted to show them another type of object so I went for M81-82. M82 was spectacular. The central dark lanes were quite apparent. If it was darker I’d have wanted to go for the jet. But my audiences interest waned, and they were cold and tired. (it was about midnight and they had all fished, kayaked, or hiked ) So we left the scope to head for the fire. I went down to the point (a bluff 600’ over the Gaulley River) and looked at Mars and M4 with the bino’s. Then Mars vanished. The clouds had come at last.
Well it was midnight and I had 2 scopes and on bino set up scattered over ¼ of a mile so I decided it was time to put the toys away.
All in all a nice night.