The occultation was due around 10 PM. I set up very early, was basically ready to go, around 8:00 PM. Well, the telescope was ready anyway. Headed inside to grab the last few items, warm up.
Phoned the neighbours to the east. As usual, they had their back yard lights on. The raccoons didn't seem to mind at all... I phoned the neighbours on the main floor of my house asking them to avoid turning on lights at the back. They didn't get that message... The house mates on the top floor had lights on. I discovered I did not have phone numbers for them. The neighbours to the west, on the main floor, were still away, it looked like, dark windows, still on vacation. Ironically, part way through the evening, I heard them unloading their car on the street. Curious timing. The people on the floor above them had lights on upstairs. I realised I did not have their phone number either... But then, they hate me. OK. Gonna need my red goggles and hooded coat.
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Back outside. Let's see what we can see. I remembered that comet Kushida was in Taurus. I started at Aldebaran and starhopped, via some Orion stars, to ζ (zeta). Nothing obvious. Popped back inside to check Stellarium. It showed Kushida almost perfectly between alpha and zeta, a little outside the horns, toward Orion. Ha. That's almost exactly how I travelled! I backtracked, then moved north-east more slowly and settled near 11 Ori and 15 Ori. I couldn't see anything.
Move on, I thought! This is double star country!
I considered 80 Taurus for some time but I was not terribly impressed. I think I was seeing it, the faint star, some distance away, at low power. Did I have the correct star?! Haas says separated by 9" but I'm not seeing anything. [Probably I was on 81...]
Move on! There are lots of multiple stars in Orion. And I needed to get in this region for Jennifer's arrival.
My Pocket Sky Atlas showed lots of stuff going in on the neck region of Orion. In fact, the broad collection of stars, at low power, an elongated S-pattern, was very pleasing. I gather this is what is meant by Cr (Collinder) 69.
It was 8:42 PM, according to my Oregon Scientific weather station. It was not liking the cold, showing a low battery icon again. Temperature was -5.3°C and humidity was 40%.
I zoomed in on λ (lambda) Orion a.k.a. Meissa. I could see at 52x [ed: that should be 56x] it was two points touching. Briefly in a moment of steady air it would develop a black line. At 77x the separation persisted, held steady. Reminded me of Castor in Gemini.
It lay in a beautiful field of bright and faint stars. The main star looked blue-white and the companion seemed peach or pale orange. I spotted a very faint star nearby! Extremely faint. Improved with averted vision. The very faint sun was in-line and equidistant to the slightly brighter field stars nearby.
At 111x, while easily separated, I felt differently about lambda's colours! Now I thought the main was pale yellow and the companion blue-white. Haas describes them as "lemon white and ashy blue-violet." She goes on the document this as a quad system! Wow! The main stars are separated by 4.3 arc-seconds (Castor is 4.2).
The double star along with the fainter 4 nearby stars reminded me of Sagitta.
On reviewing Haas's double stars book and learning lambda Orion was a quad system, it made me appreciate (once again) that I should better document (and sketch) these observations... I should show orientations to confirm the Position Angle and distances to compare Separations.
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Break time. I headed inside to rest up, warm up, and prepare for the Main Event. I had not yet printed detailed finder charts for the target star. As I did that, the thought flickered through my brain that while the scales of the charts are known, they did not correlate to my eyepieces. They could use my custom Field of View circles... Too late to tackle that now.
And as I reviewed Stellarium, I started to get nervous that the target star would be too close to the roof line of the neighbours house. I better verify if I can in fact see objects at the predicted elevation.
Back at the eyepiece, I was amazed to see lambda still dead centre. Wow. I had nailed my polar alignment tonight! Shame to spoil it... I was not confident I had a good sightline, so I moved the whole 'scope northward. Then, tilting and turning the tripod, I reacquired lambda.
OK, now, to the target star. A bit less than an hour to go... And immediately I was confused by the finder charts! The 15° chart was OK, I could generally relate to the scale and I could correlate it to PSA. My finder scope FOV would be about half of it. But as I tried to find stars in Lepus, it became challenging. Visually, at 1x magnification, I could just barely see α (alpha) and β (beta). Starhopping though I realised was confused in fact by the differences in scale. I was moving small distances in the finder scope but applying the scale from PSA.
When I tried to switch to the 2° scale chart, I was totally lost. Attempts to find stars through the baader eyepiece, despite it's generous 1° field, was disorienting. The chart was normal orientation. I really needed a mirror-reversed chart at this point. I had printed on opposite side of used sheets of paper--shining light through the paper didn't work! I didn't even bother with the 30 arc-minute chart!
Even though the sightline was better, I found the general angle poor. As I looked through the finder scope, the light from the houses was going right in my eyes. My efforts to shield with my hands was futile. I kept losing sight of the stars? Was the seeing changing? Heat from the roof tops? My eyes seemed unable to focus? Tired? The starfield was unrecognisable!
The more I tried, the more angry I grew. I was boiling. Damn neighbours and their lights. Damn light pollution. Damn air pollution. Maybe I should have driven out of the city... Alas, I had not done enough to prepare properly.
I threw in the towel at 10:29 PM. It was -7.2° and 53%.
§
Some would chalk this up to Murphy. I refuse to support that. Murphy's Law was not a factor. There was nothing that suddenly went wrong. Nothing broke. Nothing coincidently occurred to prevent me from doing this. It was primarily lack of preparation on my part. And a lack of anticipation. I should have predicted some of these issues and then I would have had a plan to deal with them.
Lessons learned:
- have finder charts with my eyepiece FOV circles shown
- rotate and mirror-reverse star charts, as needed
- ask neighbours about lights, well in advance
- locate target star further in advance; play later
- erect light shields on 'scope, on fence (if neighbours won't play nice)
I was too upset after packing up to blog. And I was done with astronomy for the day! Burnt out.
It was a challenge to find something positive out of the evening. λ Ori was spectacular though.
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