Finally got a chance to spend a quiet evening in the dome. It's been a busy day and I did not come out here until after 10 p.m., but I'm glad I did.
Early this evening there was a bright searchlight sweeping the sky, the kind that generally upsets astronomers. My first reaction was disgust, what a waste of energy and an annoying light pollution. But then I remembered my days as a child, in a small town in the Northeast. Our little town was rather uneventful, but once a year there was a carnival that rolled in. The volunteer fire department sponsored the carnival and I have fond memories of those dusty summer nights. It was probably a small travelling fair but to a small boy it was huge. They always had a big spotlight (as if anybody in that little town needed it to point the way), which I found really exciting back then. So despite my astronomy-driven disappointment with the searchlight tonight, somehow it managed to bring back some nice memories of days gone by.
Enough reminiscing, I did actually get some observing time in tonight. Mainly I played with the CCD and hopefully will post some results in the near future. I also observed:
- Spica
- M104 the Sombrero Galaxy
- Anatares
- M16 Open Cluster and the Eagle Nebula
The moon is getting bright so visual observing was not too great tonight.
The list does not sound like much but I ended up playing out here for 5 hours so I suppose I've had my astro fix for a few nights.
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