Sess.#284 7:45-11:00 FLO lm=5.2 s=3 Clear
I had not observed from the RASC's Fred Lossing Observatory in a while
and so, in spite of the moonlight, decided to check it out. Richard
Harding and Mike Zeidler had not been there before, and so we all took
the opportunity to drive there in a "wagon train" together from the
PetroCan station in Almonte.
The combination Al Seaman gave me worked on the first try. The small
road leading up to the observatory was partly muddy, partly snow
covered, but it wasn't too bad at all if you drove at moderate speed.
The nearly full moon really reduced the limiting magnitude. Even at a
dark site, you get about the same view as you would from a city
backyard location, when the moon is that large. Limiting magnitude
overhead was only 5.2 - a bit more than 1 mag. loss, as compared to a
moonless night at this site.
Seeing was fairly bad as well. After the scopes had cooled I cranked
up the magnification on an "in-focus" star, and could not even see any
diffraction rings at all. The star just seemed like a jumbled boil of
light. Out of ten, this was either a 2 or 3 at best. Unusually poor
seeing. There also seemed to be a bit of a haze hanging in the air. (
temperature differential between day & night was 15 degrees C.
Meteor - MikeZ spotted a meteor approx mag -1 in Orion constellation
early on in the evening.
Planets - were very mushy and did not snap into focus, even after cool
down.
M42 - trapezium star in all scopes looked large and boiling.
Moon - in the end, we decided to focus our efforts on the moon. I
spent perhaps an hour in total looking at the crater Plato using
different eyepieces, moon filters and magnifications. The best view I
had was through Richard's Pentax 10.5mm eyepiece - even in the poor
seeing, I could just make out three craterlets on the floor of Plato.
The contrast in that eyepiece was a definite notch better than in my
10mm Speers-Waller eyepiece.
Al Seaman, now a fellow OAF as well, showed up not too long after
sunset. Luckily, he had a key to the clubhouse and observatory so he
opened things up. Mike, who could not bring his scope ( waiting for
his 11GPS ) was then able to use the 10" Dobsonian scope, as well as
peek through the 16" in the observatory. Still later, a couple of
friendly RASC members (Rick and Bob, I believe) showed up as well.
Rick had talked with us at the sidewalk session at Chapters and even
commented: "Attilla's not with you tonight?"
Al did some collimation on a 10" SCT that was very obviously quite
off. I am by no means an expert on collimation, except that I know I
can do a fairly decent job on my SCT-8". In any case, Al and I were
able to improve the collimation substantially, I think. But a real
fine tuning would require much better skies, or a collimation shop.
It was an excellent reconnaisance mission to introduce FLO as one
potential place to go for a couple of persons who live in the West
End. Fun time for all. Thanks for giving us the tour, Al!
Photonman
