observed with crowd (Blue Mountains)

Set up the NexStar 11 GPS in the south-east corner of the GBO. So to hang with the gang.

The wind had died down. All the clouds were gone!

I had an ambitious plan for the evening. One of the things I wanted to do was test drive the new accessories for the NexStar. We had a 2" mirror diagonal, a 26mm 2" eyepiece, and a 15mm and 10mm 1.25" eyepiece.

As I set up, I quickly realised that the N11 needs one more thing. A SCT adapter, like the Tele Vue that I inherited. I have to check if there is equipment like that in the donation.

It occurred to me that this evening would also give me a chance to reconfigure the netbook (now running off the SSD) with SkyTools to drive the Celestron via ASCOM.

The spring peepers serenaded us to the east; the coyotes cajoled to the west.

Kevin and Wayne were due. I met Wayne in the Geoff Brown Observatory as Phil was giving him the tour. Spotted Kevin a little while later as he looped around in the parking lot and pointed his car north. Nice of him.

Phil and Millie helped Wayne get up and running with his Vixen mount and refractor.

8:12 PM, 10 May 2014. I tried aligning the N11. Just to test it (still too bright). But noticed, late in the proceedings, a "17 no response" error. Huh? I powered down, then up, to redo the alignment.

8:16 PM. Went OK this time.

8:22. Synced on the Moon. Noted, like on my C8, the Moon just fit in the field of view, with the 26mm.

The 26mm eyepiece was good. Clear. No major optical flaws. Very wide field.

8:32. We viewed Jupiter in the Celeston 14-inch. Are higher power we were able to coax out the moons. I checked the locations in SkyTools. I thought, before it went completely dark, that the surface of the planet was very colourful, tans, dull reds, beige, browns. Pretty neat.

They reported that Mars was unsatisfying in the C14. I viewed Mars in the N11. I spotted the ice cap. And hints of a dark region around the ice cap. Phil's iPad showed an otherwise blank face was earth-facing.

9:13. Finally spotted Capella naked eye. I could proceed with a proper alignment.

9:15. Hey! Error code 176. Gar! Re-seated the cable and tried again. Finally.

Phil had never heard of a 40mm 1.25" ocular. Ya learn somethin' every minute.

9:30. Everything was working well with the N11. I put in the 15mm eyepiece.

9:48. With the supervisor's blessing, I tried to find the mystery object from March. I slewed the C14 to π (pi) Aurigae, then to the nearby triad. I couldn't see the artefact. Nothing. I scanned and panned. I thought the sky was washed out. Damn Moon. I elected to not put the camera on. I sensed Kevin wanted to do some viewing.

10:15. I helped Kevin star hop to Messier 82 (M82). Later I helped him manually slew to Messier 81 (M81).

I quickly built an observing list in SkyTools. Drew from the march list, current comets, and a couple of other sources. It was intriguing that the Nightly Observing List Generator could not add anything with the logged filter active...

10:41. I felt the wind was picking up. I checked my portable weather stations. The Oregon Scientific reported: 69% humidity, 6.9°C, and the pressure was steady. The OneWorld reported 49% and 8.2°. Wow. Very different.

10:44. I viewed the double star HD 82159 aka Σ1360. I thought the pair equal in brightness, while faint. It was hard to detect colour at first glance.

Corrected the crew. The bright object to the ENE was not a planet; it was Vega. 

10:59. I finally figured out image orientation. In the SkyTools chart, I needed the mirror diagonal option. Weird. It was then I confirmed seeing the C star, at magnitude 13, and the easy D star, at mag 11. The primary and companions were part of a large L shape of stars. All four stars almost in a perfectly straight line, to the north-east. A and B, upon further study, I thought orange and blue. The RASC OH said A and B are blue and green (and does not refer to C and D). I dunno...

Viewed comet C/2012 K1 (Pan-STARRS) in Canes Venatici. Pretty faint. Despite the big OTA pointing straight up.

Tried to split Spica. Assumed the companion was close... Oops. Should sketch or image it...

Viewed Saturn in Wayne's 'scope. Spotted some moons nearby. Hint of colour fringing.

Headed indoors with Wayne and Phil. The hot "coohoc" chocolate was good! Did the paperwork with Wayne. He's our latest CAO passholder.

Chatted with Kevin on the Pad on my way back to the GBO. He was doing some wide field imaging with his Nikon and tripod.

11:40. Returned from a kitchen break  And I returned to 17 Virginis. Yellow and orange, it seemed. A bright primary. The pair was widely spaced in the new 26mm 2". Had a few more looks. Yep. Yellow and orangey red. Huh. The colours reported in the RASC coloured doubles list is blue and orange. Wha? [ed: Haas says primary is white and does not give a colour for the companion.]

11:56. Enjoyed θ (theta) Vir. Wow. A very nice triple. Yellow bright primary, orange star very tight, and far away a faint blue star. Nice. [ed: Haas only reports the AB pair. Notes them brilliant yellow and vivid bluish turquoise. Huh.]

Actually SkyTools reports it is a quad but the D star is 0.4" away from A. Ah... I don't think so...

12:01 AM, 11 May 2014. Kevin left.

I lost my mojo. Caught myself staring at the screen not doing anything. I folded up shop and crawled into bed.

Was a little disappointed. I wanted to do much more. Wanted to image the region near IC 2149. Wanted to try BYEOS in the field. Wanted to try the EOS movie recorder with planet imaging. Wanted to view "37 Lyncis" with Millie. The sky seemed pretty good albeit bright. No dew. No bugs! Everything worked good. Oh well. Simply too tired after Friday's physical labour.