I went up to Big Meadows as well, and spent both Friday and Saturday evening there. Friday evening was pretty bad with folks driving into the observing area with their lights on bright so they could see just what all those telescopes were doing I guess. It was pretty bad.
Saturday night was just great though. The observers were allowed to go behind the chain for a quarter of a mile or so down the road. This kept the headlights down to an ok level.
The sky was fairly dark at zenith, and seemed to get darker as the evening progressed.
Using the NGT-18, I was able to pick out Stephans Quintet and its much brighter neighbor, NGC 7331.
The Veil was downright wonderful with clearly defined swirls in the Veil strand, and tendrils in the filamentary (52 Cyg) strand. The view was outstanding using the OIII filter, but was quite visible without the filter.
M33 structure was visible at about 100x, and NGC 604, a bright nebula within M33 was clearly detected once the bright glow of the core of M33 was moved off the field of view. Sounds funny to speak of the bright glow of a dim object like M33, but there you are.
The Crescent was a nice sight, as was the Helix. The helix took up a substantial fraction of the field of view presented by the Nagler 20 at 100x. I was surprised that the thing was that big. I had never gone after it before.
I finally got to see (visually) NGC 891, the edge-on Spiral (in Andromeda). I have imaged it before, but I have never seen it in the eyepiece. One of the main reasons for this is that I don't often attempt to bring the 18 to dark sites, but I am very glad I took the opportunity this weekend. Anyway, I first used the 35mm panoptic, and missed the galaxy at first. I was about to move the field when it just seemed to jump out at the field at me in a ghostly kind of way. I finished the viewing using the 13 mm eyepiece giving 155x and pretty much filled up the field with the galaxy. The dust lane was clearly visible. Folks came over to look, and before I knew it, a number of folks down in my part of the field had located it and were viewing it as well. Nice.
I spent time with a host of other objects during the evening, and all were better for having been viewed from that location. Notable was M8. The Lagoon, even without the OIII displayed its dark interior, but in the filter, the detail was rich and filled the field at 100x.
The Northern lights were fantastic. I was chasing down M51 when the sky lit up. It was literally like that. One moment dark, the next moment white then rose. White and rose spikes striking upward to about 45 degrees above the horizon. May have been a bit lower than 45 degrees, but who was measuring?!!
Later in the evening, the Milky Way seemed to crash down into the southwestern sky. The star stream seemed to just fracture and crash onto the horizon. I have to admit that I spent a good bit of time sitting in my chair just taking in that sight. The words "Demented Kamikaze Comet crashing down like that", streamed through my consciousness after a few minutes of watching. To come up with those words it was probably more than just a few minutes. I may have been taken away for a good bit of time in that sight.
This short account really doesn't do justice to the quality of the evening. Words are like that. The weather was wonderful, the sky was dark, and the folks were great. Hard to ask for more.
Steve Robinson
Novac/AAVSO
