The fog started to move in on the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club meeting last night around 10:30. Luckily I had just finished my marathon observation of the Virgo cluster, and I was getting tired. We noticed Saturn had risen, and the head of the familiar summertime constellation Scorpius was poking her head above the horizon.
Out of curiosity, and because the area was nearly the only part of the sky no completely covered in fog, I pointed the scope at the Graffias (B-Scorpii) and lo and behold - optical double. A very nice one too.
All in all a great session in an amazing location: a winery patio high in the Santa Cruz Mountains surrounded by alpacas! Good company too. Thanks John Pierce for helping me collimate my Dob to perfection.
Other highlight was seeing Sirius dazzle the western horizon around sunset through John's enormous binoculars.
Thanks again to the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club for a great night. See you again soon.
Thanks! It was a lot of fun. I spent at least an hour staring at one very small piece of the sky, counting and then recounting. If you haven't checked out the Virgo cluster, I reccomend it. Its placed nicely now.
Also, you reminded me I need to implement comment deletion ;)
Ooops, posted the previous comment to the wrong observation, it was meant to go on your last galaxy in the marathon, M61.
Sounds like an awesome galaxy marathon! Impressive to say the least.
Please login to post comments
Graffias
- Observed with: Orion 10'' SkyQuest dobsonian
- Seeing: below average
- Light pollution: above average