Tornadoes maybe Dennis?
As a prelude to next weekend, and to perhaps wet your appetites: we had a small gathering at Ron's Monday night after all : I took my mate Gavin (not a forum member - yet) out to Ron's for an evening of social viewing, as did Graham from the forum here.
The clouds pretty much vanished prior to sunset, right on cue, and according to online sources there was NO jetstream within hundreds of kilometres of us. Things were looking good!
While Ron fired up his new-fangled propane burning SMOKELESS bar-B-que Gavin and I had a look at a very slim moon crescent sitting just above the main hill to the west (before it disappeared rapidly) along with Venus which was blazing like a mighty beacon just a little above.
Anyway we cooked dinner (Graham was dining on what looked like cheese & biscuits - did you have any wine with that Graham?) and once our food was ready Ron, Gavin and I dined at my observing table out near the scopes, looking up at the glorious stars as the heavens literally came alive for us. We were spotting satellites at this primo time of night at a rate of up to one every minute or so, Gavin drew our attention to one in particular and just as he did it gave us a tremendous intense white flareup for a few seconds. It would have been quite worthy of the Hubble, and it was better than any Iridium flare I have personally witnessed, quite spectacular indeed!
The viewing that followed dinner was very good mostly, with patches of cloud floating around at times but not intrusively so, not at this time anyway. The LMC blazed brightly even as the western sky still showed signs of the last hint of daylight fading out, the SMC was also clearly & unmistakably visible at this early stage.
Over the next few hours we had some wonderful viewing indeed: I saw more colour in Saturn, and I mean all of Saturn, not just the bands, than I have ever seen before. The entire globe stood out distinctly as a yellowish-tan colour compared to the more blueish white of the rings.
Ron managed to make observation of the last of the 24 Herschel galaxies that he has been working his way through of recent times. Omega Centauri has never looked so blatantly visible naked eye as it did to me that night, in fact I remember later in the evening how it still stood out clearly even through a wet haze across that part of the sky.
Graham sadly was having problems again with his new-ish camera (hope your phone call to the vendor went well Tuesday) so his evening was somewhat spoiled by that.
I have never seen a man with such perseverance as Graham has showed with various obstacles over the last few months - it doesn't matter what problem has arisen he has steadfastly worked around / moved through it. I'm sure that the results he will soon be achieving will be a testament to his determination.
Clouds did start moving in a bit more regularly as the evening moved along, Gavin left around 10:30 -11pm as he had to work the next day. The rest of us watched as Antares slowly rose through the gunk near the horizon and eventually we managed to view the new Scorpio nova between the trees as it cleared the horizon. We were hopeful that as it rose higher out of the swampy air we would see it naked eye but sadly the moisture / cloud continued to rise as well, preventing a naked eye view after all. By the time Jupiter rose it was clearly not worth even aiming a scope in it's direction for the wavering haze.
Graham left somewhere around this time(?) leaving Ron and I chasing the clear sky in between hazy fuzzy areas that grew larger and larger. I think we abandoned the scopes around 1am or so and talked while watching the skies (mostly with with God's own bino's) for another half hour before deciding that it was time to call it quits. A wet sky had been suddenly joined by very serious ground fog moving in as well.
All in all some excellent viewing with numerous meteors through out the night as well, good companions, fine dining under the stars - what more could a man want?
Hope to see you all Saturday!
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If we all wish hard enough it will be fine
lots of detail and very crisp at the best seeing moments
