[Lvas] Last Night

[Fred Rayworth]

All,
 
While some of you did the "tourist" thing out at Redrock, I went to Sawmill Trailhead. There were four other people there with scopes except they got there earlier and had set up on the smaller parking area to the north of the latrines because in the bigger lot, there were a group of people taking up most of it.
 
I was running late as I had a book signing in Henderson, so this was a spur of the moment thing for me. However, it was well worth it.
 
There was very little wind, but as the night progressed, it whipped up just enough to have to weight down my star charts.
 
The sky was very clear, or so it seemed. At about 9:00, it got super dark and clear for a little while. However, seeing was terrible. I looked at Jupiter several times during the night and could not focus it cleanly, even at low power.
 
I found 6 Herschel 2's last night including two galaxy knots in M-101. I also spotted a third galaxy knot that wasn't a Herschel 2. All in all, I found 10 new objects to add to my database.
 
The seeing and transparency weren't as good as it seemed. After checking my log, the faintest galaxy I saw was only 13.1 which is why I was frustrated looking for what I though were easy targets that were close to brighter stars! Most of what I spotted was in the 11-12 maginuted range, and they were very faint, for the most part.
 
It was still worth it though. I'm hoping to do it again this upcoming Saturday.
 
Fred
 
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