The Shortest Session Ever...

NELM 4.5-5 (observed in twilight)
Sky Conditions: Clear, Rain, Clear, Rain, Moon
Equipment: 15" F5 StarSplitter (Swayze), Paracorr, 30mm BW, 22Pano,
13mm Nagler t6 and 9mm Nagler
July 15, 2003

Observers: Tom Trusock, Keith Rutkowski

After Monday's session with the 15", Keith was quick to call and see
if I would be taking it out again for the evening. The CSC looked
fairly promising, so he came over, we wheeled it out and turned the
fan on to cool. Although the sky was completely clear, some sixth
sense made me decide to park it under the overhang instead of in it's
usual position.

Thank god.

We both went inside to wait for dark.

Around 10pm we came out and saw that it had just started to
sprinkle. Quickly we wheeled the 15" into the garage. As we debated
scratching the entire session, we noticed that the clouds had cleared
to the west. We decided to give it 25 minutes and see what happens.

25 minutes later, the skies were totally clear w/ no sign of clouds
at all.

We wheeled the scope out, carried the table and equipment to it's
location and decided to start with the ring. M57 was spectacular.
The 14.7 and 15.3 mag stars on the rim were seen with averted vision,
but there was no sign of the central star. To be fair - we didn't
really look. We kept the magnification to around 250x, and contented
ourselves with the sight of the bright ring filled with it's luminous
gasses floating in a sea of black velvet.

Moving on to m13, I let out an involuntary gasp as I was struck by
just how much bigger a 15" is (in comparision to a 10"). Even in
twilight the 9mm nagler (~250x) resolved stars clear across the face
and throughout the cluster, with streamers bursting out in all
directions that reminded me of nothing so much as celestial fireworks.

The Swayze mirror performed flawlessly, as each individual star was a
diamond, while the cluster was a glorious swirl in the blackness of
space. I've never had a view of M13 like that.

And it was still twilight!

Keith was hopping about from foot to foot nervously looking towards
the sky pointing out that another front was moving in - reluctantly I
decided the nice thing to do would be to let him have his turn at the
eyepeice. I really didn't want to.

After five minutes, he could only tear his eyes away when I pointed
out that we had best get the scope inside as it looked like we might
be in for another shower.

The clouds descended as we worked frantically to get the big scope
in the garage.

Excited we talked in the garage and both admitted that image would be
burned in out minds for a long time to come. He had intended to go
home then, but we were so pumped up that we sat around and talked for
another 40 minutes. As we walked outside, we noticed that it had
cleared again, but this time, that old enemy of the deep sky
enthausaist had risen to claim the night. With the prospect of
clearer weather the following night, we agreed that it would be
better to try to get some sleep in preperation.

Sleep?? HAH! I lay in bed for hours remembering the view of m13.
Tonight the forecast is for clear skies and little sleep - at least
until the moon rises.

Tom T.