I went out at sunset and opened the observing room and started up (turned on) the small heater in the warm room. As you can see I have added the roof's removable structural supports to help with any snow load that might occur before my intervention. Before I got into the warm room I had a guest come to visit just before her bedtime. She normally inspects all my activities to give her approval. She apparently doesn't think the chair should go there!
I'm now really enjoying the sound of my roof rolling open. The CPC 1100 had been
I went out there with the understanding that it was going to be the coldest night so far this season. When I started observing at 1830 local it was 22 (-6C) degrees by the time I finished at 2330 it was 15 (-10C) degrees. I had on so many layers I looked like Randy (Ralphie's little brother) in the old movie A Christmas Story.
This night's gear, the CPC 1100 with the .63
12, 9mm XCel LX - 147x & 196x
Agena 15, 20mm SWA - 118x & 88x
This list below only shows the items that I was able to observe it does not reflect just as many items I could not see even though I was looking right at them. Most of the invisible objects were in my southern sky. All the deep sky objects were initially observed with Agena 20mm SWA
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• M15 in Pegasus - resolved to the core, always a fun globular to observe
• M77 in Cetus - was diminished by being in my southern sky and through the muck, all I could see was an edge-on faint glow with no structure
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Now on to somewhat brighter objects because my transparency was starting to deteriorate
• M13 in Hercules - resolved to the core, always a fun globular to observe
• M31, 32, & 110 in Andromeda - all three were very evident and presented themselves well with only basic structure seen in m31
• M33 In Triangulum - showed its typical oval desk but no structure was evident
• M45 The Pleiades in Taurus - structured nebulosity was evident around the brightest stars.
• M1 The Crab Nebula in Taurus - this is a cute planetary nebula, tonight, its internal structure was evident
• M42, 43 in Orion - the reason we own telescopes, deep structure was evident throughout this whole complex. Trapezium was easily resovled.
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• C14 the Perseus Dbl Cluster - always a
• M81 and M82 in Ursa Major both showed structure in their own unique way
The seeing was pretty awful. High altitude fast-moving air. I started with the XCel LX 12mm, and briefly tried the 9mm, but the seeing did not support the use of this
• Jupiter -- central north and south cloud bands only
• Saturn -- Some disc coloration differences. Rings resolved only to Cassini's division
• Mars -- Quite fuzzy. Could really only tell light areas from the dark. The dark area was south of Valles Marineris
I did not appreciate how vital the warm room would be until this Evening. I was able to observe for about 45 to 50 minutes and then I would have to retire to the warm room. It was a new thing for me to walk into a small room, close the door behind me, and sit down in a 72 (22C) degree room. The rejuvenating effect was nearly immediate and immense. So 15 minutes later I was back outside. This room made it possible for me to stay out for five hours in a very cold environment. This outing paved the way for using a laptop in that room to control all things
It was a great first of many, many adventures for the Rimrock Observatory.
Please visit if you should ever have the chance.
Cheers,
