Telescope Reviews: Observing in the Shade

July1-2 Clouds and skeeters at 9PM, slight valley fog at 11:15PM. Weather person said low humidity air tonight but after a week of rain with puddles everywhere that just can't be right. I was just about to go in but the skies were sort of clear. As I pulled the scope out at midnight I started dewing up. Climbing the ladder I heard buzzing in my ears but it did not last long. The airborne skeeter eaters swooped all around the scope. It seemed as though the bats wanted a peek into the eyepiece. For the next 3+ hours I was never bothered by a single bug. Seeing was not the best and I was pretty much stuck using a 32mm Televue widefield eyepiece, yielding about 100x and .66 degrees FOV, for most of the session. Transparency was fairly good once the few remaining clouds passed. This was the first night that I was bothered by light pollution from the Southeast and during the session it moved towards the South. I countered by observing on the North side of the barn in the "shade".
In another thread on here a member asked the question "why aren't globular clusters red in color". To that end I selected globulars from different areas trying to pick ones that were fairly high so that atmospheric reddening would not affect the results. Tonight only the brighter globulars exhibited subtle colors. Dimmer ones like NGC 5466 in Bootes and NGC 7006 in Delphinus were greyish white. The sample of bright globulars is small since it is difficult to jump about from target to target with a 25" for comparisons while trying to remember slight tints of color. Bright globulars selected were M13,M2 and M15. The mellow yellow winner was M15 which had a very definite yellow hue. The result sure surprised me as I had never tried this before and if you had asked me the day before I would have said that the color differences were not very evident visually.
A look at M51 and its companion NGC 5195 revealed spiral arms and a "bridge" between with direct vision. Several surrounding stars were visible but not the few between the two galaxies which are easily visible on a better night.
Back to work on another thread concerning globular NGC 7006. A tiny puffball of a globular it was off and on granular in appearance at 100x. Bumping up to 242x bloated the nearby stars and a further increase to 350x caused it to almost fade from view. Up the ladder comes a dew soaked cat looking for a view and a rub. This globular is definitely going to require excellent seeing to resolve into stars. Presently it is about 75 degrees up and maybe I will observe it up to its highest. Nope. All of a sudden the eyepiece swings down and away, darn cat.
It was time to move further into the "shade" anyways so the cat got to keep one of its lives. Next stop was the double cluster in Perseus. With a 32mm Teleview widefield eyepiece about half of each cluster can be seen simultaneously. Using my new Meade 30mm UWA garnered about 2/3 of each cluster in a single .78 degree field. I had to move my eye about in order to see clearly to the field stop near each cluster. This eyepiece is going to take some getting used to. The eyepiece is a heavy bugger almost requiring the use of a good size cat as a counterweight. Here kitty kitty.
It is around 2:30 AM, everything is dripping with dew, and soon dawn will approach. The last targets for the night were M31 and its' satellite galaxies M32 and NGC 205. Pointing the scope toward M31 I found something reminiscent to how it looked back back when I lived in a red zone. "Should be brighter " I told the cats. Another little push on the scope and the real M31 stood up. The first object was NGC 205 looking like a real galaxy in a green zone, not like the small hazy football I was used to seeing in the city. With M31 centered in the eyepiece I noticed a glow off to the side similar to that produced while panning the sky and nearing a bright star or planet. One more little push found M32. In moments of steadier seeing M32 revealed its' stellar nucleus, surrounded by a soft halo. The stellar association NGC 206 was faintly visible in M31 but the dust lanes were difficult.
While getting ready to pack up I noticed a satellite near M15 that was quickly brightening. It was at around 3 AM. The satellite quickly became painfully bright. I estimated it reached around -6 magnitude and then just as quickly it faded from view.
During this session I took several breaks to just soak up the sky without optical aid. At the start of any night I make an assessment of the viewing conditions and then decide which if any equipment will see starlight. Tonight I noticed for the first time another source of light pollution that I never noticed when observing in the city. That is the reason I observed in the "shade". The combined light of the milky way within ten degrees or so of the galactic center along with Jupiter cast a noticeable shadow of the barn on the ground. Our galactic neighbors had left their lights on all night. How very inconsiderate of them to do so.
So there you have it. If I try hard enough I can usually find something to complain about. Life is tough,eh?

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Ted