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Location: Gott Observatory, July 7, 2007 Conditions: from semi-clear to completely overcast back to semi-clear. Moon at Last Quarter, not present, with a large mosquito population, somewhat managed by DEET Collin Smith: 6” Custom Dob, 6 & 8mm BO/TMB Planetaries, 12mm Pentax XF, 15 & 20mm TV Plossls, 25mm Antares Elite Plossl, 2” SuperView 30mm & Orion 32mm Optiluxe, UO Klee 2.8x Barlow Travis Brown: a nice fold up lawn chair and … Roy Wilson Arriving about 10 minutes after Roy and Travis, I set up the dob in the record time it takes to set up one, starting in on Venus, beckoning brightly from the West. The beautiful crescent was quite nice, and I highly recommend a person take a look at Venus right now. She’s getting lower and lower in the west as she races through her faster orbit, ultimately crossing us at the Sun and showing up in our morning sky in late August, but up to Thursday she’s getting brighter and brighter (as the crescent grows thinner but larger). This is a great time to catch her. I walked north and west, downwind of the scope, and generously sprayed on the DEET filled repellent. The mosquitoes were insistent, trying to get a light on any inch of flesh not covered in DEET. Hopefully some dryer weather will head our way and end this problem. Travis wanted to look at Saturn, and although I was quite inclined to agree, Saturn took off behind the western clouds, never to really completely return. We turned to the East for some nice views of Jupiter, who did not disappoint. As we studied Jove with my 8mm BO/TMB, Shirley’s cousin from DFW, Mike Jones, former SPAC member and knowledgeable amateur astronomer came by with three other relatives at the house for a family reunion. They took turns looking at Jupiter, and Mike gave my scope some nice compliments. Apparently they’d had Shirley’s 12.5” reflector out the night before, so I know they got an eyeful from something better very recently. Still, his comments were appreciated by me. Mr. Jones and company were tired from the previous evening, however, and moseyed on toward the observatory & back to the house as we continued on. It was about this time that we noticed we didn’t have anything to look at. The clouds had completely obscured just about everything. There were large cotton balls of clouds overhead, with a star here and there peeking through, but no target good enough to look at. But we persisted, and eventually it cleared up enough to catch glimpses of M51, M81/82, M57, and M13. We split Graffias (Beta Scorpii) the basic pair and the easier double of the quadruple system Nu Scorpii, finishing with Albireo. Roy needed to get home as church organist the next morning, so we said good night. BTW, Roy did a nice job on the Carillon the following evening at the Administration Bldg at Tech. Travis offered to help me pack up, but I wanted to stick around a bit and look some more. The mosquitoes never completely gave up the notion of terrorizing me, but I persisted looking at Antares at very high power though unable to split it, and checking out the views through my BO/TMB 6mm and Pentax XF 12mm & TeleView 15mm Plossl combined with my Klee on Jupiter, Izar, and Nu Scorpii. But eventually fatigue set in and I knew it was time for me to wash off the repellent and hit the sack. Another good night under the stars. CDS
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