Leigh, Mark, Oleg and Harvey
Guests: Phil Northcott, Robb Farion
Maple Ridge Secondary School Astronomy club: Amy with her father Marty and little sister Rani
Mark, Harvey and Phil arrived: 7:10 pm
Leigh, Robb Farion, Amy, Marty and Rani arrived 8:10pm
Temp: 7C
This was another of those nights that turned out a lot different than I expected. I was expecting to pick up Oleg at the second gate and meet Mark, Harvey and his guest at the observatory. As it turned out we had more company than we expected.
When I arrived at the forest entry gate I pulled up to the key pad to let myself in. A fellow standing next to the notice board on the right side of the road started walking over to talk to me. I held off opening the gate to find out what the fellow wanted. He asked me if I was with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada to which I replied I was. He asked me if there was a “meeting” at the observatory tonight and if so could he join in. I told him he was welcome to join us. I suggested he follow me to the second gate and then ride the rest of the way in the Tracker with me.
After I went through the gate I walked back to get the key from the lock box and let our guest through the gate. I noticed another car pull up behind so I walked up to see who it was and recognized Amy from the MRSS astronomy club. Her dad was driving and her little sister was in the back seat. I suggested they follow us to the second gate as well and I would relay everyone the last few hundred meters to the observatory.
While driving my first guest to the observatory introduced himself as Robb Farion. He told me he is a friend of Graham Coates and learned of our observing session from him at a RC model event they attended together that same afternoon. He was interested in trying some astrophotography so I was glad Mark was going to be at the observatory. After dropping off Robb, I returned to the second gate to give Amy and her family a ride up.
On the trip from the second gate, Amy introduced me to her father, Marty and her little sister, Rani. We barely had time to do our introductions before we reached the helliport below the observatory. I parked the tracker and we walked the rest of the way.
Once everyone was at the observatory, Oleg headed up to the telescope with plans to do some collimation. Harvey had his big Dobs set upon the west side of the observatory. Mark was setting up his Tak on the outside pad with plans to image M95 again. Robb set up his camera tripod on the north side of the pad. Amy and her family introduced themselves to Harvey and Phil and Amy introduced her dad and sister to Mark and Oleg.
I kept busy helping Oleg in the dome and helping Mark some with setup. Oleg made some improvements in the collumation and then took some images to analyze his work.
Unfortunately Mark had some bad luck with his mount and had to change plans for his night. He got his AstroTrak set up to take some wide field images.
Harvey spent the evening chasing galaxies and showing the night’s sites to our guests. The following is his report:
****
Spring is galaxy season. Every year I try to get a good look at the Virgo and Coma galaxy clusters. Last year from Hope Slide I had great views: it was almost like looking at a photograph. This year the weather hasn’t cooperated. So my goal going up to the AOMO was to see how many of the Virgo galaxies I could make out from there. As often happens, things didn’t go according to plan.
I came up with my friend, Phil Northcott.
I set up my 15″ Obsession UC and my 10″ Orion dobs. As it was getting dark, we looked at first Venus (nice waning crescent), then Mars (seeing wasn’t good enough to show surface detail) through the 15″. We then spent awhile on a tour for Amy and her family. We looked at Mizar and Alcor through the 10″, since it was behind the dome from where we had set up the 15″. We looked at M108 (galaxy) and M97 (Owl nebula), because they are a short hop from Merak and so easy to find. Amy said that was the first time she had ever seen a nebula and even though it was just a small fuzzy grey blob, she seemed pretty excited. The tracking platform worked well to keep objects in the eyepiece so everyone could take a look. The girls then went up to visit you in the dome and I shifted the 15″ back into Leo to look for M95.
I spotted M105 and at least one of the nearby NGCs as well as M96 of course, but didn’t pay them much attention except as necessary to help me identify M95 so we could look for the supernova. Once I had M95, we got Mark’s image of the supernova to compare. Mark wasn’t sure which was the supernova; Phil used his iphone to download an image that identified it. We were then able to see the supernova in the eyepiece and it was obvious that it had dimmed quite a bit since Mark’s photo (as expected).
We then wrapped up the evening with a few (poor) views of galaxies in Markarian’s chain and thereabouts, followed by a look at Saturn through the AOMO scope.
Depart: Marty, Amy and Rani 9:30pm
Oleg, Harvey and Phil 10:50pm
Mark & Leigh 1:30am
Temp: 7C