Your humble narrator, Collin Smith, arrived at Emma about 7:15.  I was 45 minutes late, and Jerry Hatfield, the only person there, said if I hadn't made it out in an hour, he'd have left, so it was good that I'd made it when I did.  Because I had taken Neetu and Maya to pick up Neetu's car on my way out, I didn't have room to put my 6" dob in the car, which is what I'd preferred.  Instead, I had taken the 100mm refractor with the somewhat time-consuming AstroView equatorial mount along.  Really, it's a quick setup compared to most EQ mounts, but if you've ever observed with Jerry, you know that taking the time to point the scope north, balance it, and finally use the polar alignment scope to really get it good, you'd have missed at least 7 or 8 galaxies through his 10" Orion, I decided to leave it in the car.  In some ways, that would be a bad choice given what was about to happen with the next person to show up, but in some ways perhaps it was educational.  The refractor remained quietly in the car.

The wind was not a problem for us on the ground, and that was a blessing.  We took a quick look at the Andromeda Galaxy cluster, M31/32/110.  Wow!  The dust lane was clearly evident.  This wasn't going to be the best night I've had at Emma (see the December 30, 2008 Observation Report for that), but it was still good.  Besides pointing out what a good 10" mirror can do, Jerry was showing off his new TMB 100 degree AFOV eyepiece.  Quite nice.  Expansive and wonderful, especially for large Andromeda.

 Jerry aligned his Intelliscope with Capella and Sirius, lickety split, and put the Sculptor Galaxy in the Finder.  Next up, the Double Cluster and M1.  Not as good as the M1 on Dec. 30th, 2008, but there was some proto-mottling evident in the eyepiece.  We quickly put the scope on Jupiter, which was now low in the west, wavering in the focuser due to the heat waves in the atmosphere.

 It was at this point that Denny Mingus made his way to Emma.  Jerry and I saw someone driving along, so I put my green laser pointer on the correct "don't drive past this one" telephone poll on the caliche road that leads to the dirt path to the Emma Cemetery.  Denny, while trying to set up his refractor at Jerry's behest, also got a nice view of Jupiter.

 Then it was off to Uranus.  With the help of a printout from Orion's the Sky software showing Uranus' location, Jerry looked through the 50x finderscope and put the aquamarine dot directly in the focuser.  We had some fun ramping up the power, trying out my 9mm Nagler T6, 6.7mm Meade 5000 UWA, and Jerry's 5mm Edge On.

 We had a good time looking at M74 and the Sculptor/Eridanus galaxy families in the southwestern skies.  The rest of the evening found us testing my O-III filter on the low-lying North American Nebula (not so great), the Rosette Nebula in Monoceros, and a different view of M42, the Great Orion Nebula.  After that we had to look at M42 and the Trapezium without the filter.  We got all six stars with both the 5mm Edge On and the 6.7mm Meade 5000 UWA.  I preferred the view with the 6.7mm, due to the tighter stars.  The atmosphere just wasn’t cooperating for 240-power magnification.  Stars were a bit bloated even at the 179x of the 6.7mm, though not as badly so.  We should have tried the Nagler 9mm.  Bet it would’ve got the E & F stars even at only 133 times, but with pinpoint stars.  The Nebula sure looked nice, though, in the 6.7mm UWA.  The 82 degree view sure is agreeable.  Spacewalk, ja wohl!

 Jerry and I enjoyed the Flame Tree, NGC 2024, by Alnitak.  I guess this target is more of a geeky astronomy hack target, cause Jerry and I were more impressed than Denny.  I have to admit that compared to M42, yes, NGC 2024 is a bit weak, but it’s another old friend I really enjoy.

 After this, we caught NGC 2438 inside M46.  We did the M35/NGC2158, M37, M36, M38/NGC 1907 (Jerry’s 10” can actually begin to resolve the more distant, ghostly clusters!) tour.  M33 was nice but not as spectacular as I’ve seen it before through Jerry’s scope (lower and somewhat inferior conditions).  Saw Mars’ polar cap and a bit of darkening just below the snowcap.  We got the doubles Eta Cassiopeia and Almach, and even saw Mirach’s Ghost.  Around this time, our feet began to freeze and it was time to leave.

 I like to believe Denny got a good taste of astronomy and we’ll get another chance to do this, soon.  The opposition of Mars is coming up and the Wolfforth beckons.