bad seeing viewing (Blue Mountains)

From the back deck, the sky look good, at last. Too bad David had left.

Instruments: GSO 16-inch RC, Tele Vue 101 refractor
Mount: Paramount ME
Method: Go To

Clear everywhere, clear of clouds. But then I noticed the twinkling. Everything was flickering badly below 45 degrees. Really bad seeing! Even without my eyeglasses, I could see everything was madly twinkling. Bad for stars and planets...

Rhonda spotted the Pleiades. Then a meteor heading west. A Draconid? She wondered where the Big Dipper was. I spotted it, scooping up water from the bay, low in the north. We had to shift east into the parking lot to see it. With Elaine and Rhonda from the driveway, we noted the Milky Way aligned east-to-west. A very unusual orientation. Completely different direction. Elaine spotted the Andromeda galaxy nearly straight up. We enjoyed Orion rising. Betelgeuse over the hill. The other shoulder star [ed: Bellatrix.] I could see the bow of the Hunter. Two of the belt stars [ed: Mintaka and Alnilam], then Rigel, as we took in the eastern sky. I could see Meissa [ed: Correction: Collinder 69]. Winter is coming. A bright point to the south-south-west. Fomalhaut? [ed: Yes.] Thrown off by the late time. I noticed Aquila diving in the west horizon, Lyra low in the north-west.

I spotted θ (theta) 1 and 2 in Taurus with my prescription specs. [ed: 5½ arc-minutes.]

Rhonda returned to the warm house. Elaine, shivering, said she'd come back out shortly to use the SLO. I headed to the Geoff Brown Observatory.

I had my long johns on, several layers on the torso, and the winter coat. Toque on.

Forgot to connect the old netbook to the large external monitor. Too tired to bother.

Humidity was high.

Last weekend, Steve had quickly fixed the Tele Vue refractor slippage issue and he cautioned me about co-axial alignment. It was OK, usable.

12:59 AM. Viewed S Cephei in the big 'scope with the 27mm ocular. A star of "unusual colour." It sure is! A deep orange. Wow! There were some faint field stars. Returned to the observatory floor to view at low power. Astonishing the poor seeing. Made it hard to focus.

I viewed with the red star with the 10mm in the little OTA. Nice. Unfortunately no bright field stars at 54x. Could drop the power lower... Super colour!

1:03. Back in the Warm Room. I felt creaky.

Looked in my bag of carrying portable computer bits. Ugh, the old black mouse. With low batteries too boot. Watch out for random double clicks.

Checked the altitude for S Cep. It was at 51 degrees. [ed: 1.3 airmasses.] Considered a bright star or double high up on the same side of the meridian, over 80°, to gauge seeing. Stuff in Pegasus? TW Peg was only 55 up. Used the keyword "zenith" to search in TSX.

Remembered I had added to my list a globular cluster from the distant galaxy.

Found WDS CHR 123 aka θ (theta) And in TheSkyX. Around 80 degrees in altitude. Slewed.

1:15. It was hot in the Warm Room. Opened the window. Removed my hat.

Ah, geez. Noted that SkyTools reported this double had a separation of 0.10"! No. No way I would be able to split. But it worked for gauging the seeing. It was not great even at this elevation but it was workable.

Returned to S Cep for another look. GCV S Cep in TSX. Grabbed the 18mm for the TV101 to draw in even more stars.

Wow. It really was an amazing colour. Very deep orange. Nice.

Selected V380 Cep from my View Again list. [ed: WDS LI 6.] A double, not split. Not recognised in TheSky. Looked up the alternate in ST3P: SAO 19158. It was a short slew.

I didn't see anything per se with the star. Could not see the mag 13 companion. Fuzziness. Was that fog on the eyepiece or diffuse nebula? Simulated the view in SkyTools. NGC 7023. A nebula surrounding the star. That sounded familiar. Was that the Iris? Yes!

1:24. Thought about giving Elaine a bit more time. She must have gone to bed.

Reviewed by imaging target ideas. The comet. Right, the two-in-the-view thing... Checked Evernote for my weekend plan notes. Returned to ST3P. Uh huh, NGC 672 with IC 1727 in Tri. I thought about everything I'd need to do... That it'd take me 30 to 60 minutes of prep. Closed my eyes to visualise. Dangerous, that, even though I had tried to sleep shift. I was feeling a little slow and a little tired. Yawned. Nope. Not into it. And I had a lot to do tomorrow...

Returned to the ocular to dig out the faint star. Flipped the eyepieces. Nope.

1:38. Next?

Doubles were off the table.

The comet C/2018 W2. I tried searching for it in the Software Bisque app: not listed. I did not recall how to add comets. Made a note to review the process for TSX [ed: And I should add it to the online TSX software resources page]. Looked for a nearby star, common between the two applications: 83 Aquarii. Issued the Slew command.

Got it! Didn't see anything obvious is the 101mm refractor; very apparent in the 16-inch Ritchey-Chrétien. To my 10 or 11 o'clock PPM 709596 (mag 10.8) [ed: aka BD -08 06001 and TYC 05820-0334 1]. 3 o'clock, fainter star GSC 05820-0607 (12.2). Below (south-west), GSC 05820-0606 (13.8). Equal brightness to 607, I saw BD -09 06103 (11.4) [ed: TYC 05820-0287 1]. Did pick up the coma and the bright nucleus. Wondered if I saw two things, as I used averted vision. Kinda cool!

Heard a funny note from the drive. Repeating, cycling. [ed: Was the drive at a different tracking rate?]

Pretty low. Late to be looking at the comet.

1:53. Orion was fully visible.

The comet was very near Tycho 5821:451 according to TheSky. Neat. [ed: Cartes du Ciel shows that well away!]

Decided to go for Neptune. It was starting to descend. For my Ariel target... The slew was extremely short. Ha. The comet was beside the 8th planet!

Bad seeing hampered this. Triton was not visible. Meant this was futile. Neat stars to the east (with TYC 05249-0401 1) and the south (with PPM 207251) [ed: aka BD -07 05949, TYC 05249-0350 1], almost in the exact same pattern... Checked the field in SkyTools.

Chose galaxy NGC 7325 in Pegasus. One of the fleas.... A pretty nice view!

Look at that canted big galaxy! Dark lane visible. Great view with the 27mm. That was 7331. Saw a small fuzzy nearby (to the east): NGC 7335. Saw a flattened triangle of stars to the north-east.

2:03. Confirmed there were many little galaxies nearby. Rotated the field in the SkyTools Context Viewer. 7325 was to the north-west, should have been left, of the big spiral.

Noted the three bright stars with SAO 72522 [ed: aka BD +33 04546 and TYC 02743-1371 1] to my left, the north-west.

Looked again. Panned. Noted the line of three stars with the descender, the J-shape. But no fuzziness around the middle star... It looked stellar. Left on View Again. Too tired to chase after. It was a nice view, overall. Worth returning too.

So the transparency was fair.

Thought about what I had to do before sleep. I had to put the GBO to bed. I had to put the SLO to bed. Then, in the house, I had to make my bed. Ugh.

Parked the 'scope. Closed the roof. Shut stuff down. Started the dehumidifier. Turned off the Warm Room heaters. Shut down apps. Put John Repeat Dance to sleep.

Grabbed a flashlight. Buttoned up the SLO.

2:20. Exited the GBO.

Inside, on the Linux box, I noted the local conditions from the Davis weather station. As of 2:24 AM. 10 minute average wind speed was 9.7 km/h, wind direction SSE, high wind speed 11.3, outside humidity was 93%, barometer read 103.1, outside temperature was 3.1°, with the wind chill 0.4!