Observing Report - August 4, 2013

Today I decided to take another stab at driving up to Mount Seymour, and whaddaya know it worked. Except I got to the top and realized that there were 4.2 x 10^8 biting insects around and I had no bug dope. Back to the bottom of the mountain, find a Safeway, buy bug dope, spray myself in the parking lot and back up just in time to see not only an 11" CPC (my heart's set on the 9"; if it's good enough for Commander Hadfield, it's good enough for me) but also a 20" f/5 Obsession being set up. Introduced myself, then waited for the sky to get dark.

I came to get down. And by "get down" I mean "pick up Messiers in Sagittarius", so I did. My god, I got a lot tonight. They were all sunk in Vancouver's skyglow, so nebulosity was nearly invisible, but: M8, M21, M25, M18 (Swan nebula), and M16. Coulda gone for M24 but I was just too tired by this point.

I took a break, because the Obsession owner was having trouble with the encoders on it and was pretty much too busy futzing with that to look through the scope...so he gave me a turn, and I took the chance to look at M13 (through a 13mm Ethos, no less). No finder on it -- Telrad and laser pointer only -- so it was tricker than I thought it would be to track down M13, particularly balanced at the top of a ladder and trying to find out where the Telrad viewer was. But then I found it and Oh. My. God, It's full of stars. It was incredible: bright as hell, resolved all the way to the core, and big looping chains of suns all through it. In fact, this comparison pretty much nails it.

He had a really slick setup: goto, a sliding canopy in the back of his truck, a million little improvements...it was a wonder to behold. But man, what a lot of work. And climbing up a ladder was a new one on me. I don't know that I'd want something like that without having a permanent setup.

After listening to some poor animal get murdered by another animal, and then verifying that the animals we could hear walking around were deer and not bear, I decided to have a look at M31, now rising. And damn me if I didn't find M32 and M110 both. Woohoo! Pretty sure that's six new Messiers for me...don't have the book I'm keeping track of close to hand, so a guess. But still. Add an ISS flyover, and it was a pretty excellent night.