We arrived around 1pm under sunny skies and 102degree heat and set up camp. Then we had an experience that we all know too well: around 6pm the clouds starting rolling in. By 8, there was lightning and thunder in the distance, and we had scattered showers. This is in an place where it hadn't rained in NINE WEEKS! So the residents were happy that I brought my telescope, even though we didn't get to use it.
At 4am I woke to a sky that was about half clear and the temperature was about 80degrees. I quickly set up the scope, and tried to align it. That's when I realized that somewhere in my travels the finderscope had taken a whack and was nowhere near aligned. This presented a challenge for me since there wasn't a terrestrial target in site that I could use to align the finder. I lost about 10 minutes using Vega because of course as I was aligning the finder, it was moving in the eyepiece. Now it was 4:30, another few minutes were lost aligning the scope since I could not see polaris and was estimating from Cassiopia. I noticed M31, it was a naked eye object, so put the scope on it. It completely filled the FOV of a 32mm eyepiece. The central core that I'm used to seeing as little more than a smudge was about 1/4 FOV high and 2/3 FOV wide. There was a distinct edge to the core and there was a lighter haol around it that extended slightly to the top and bottom and out of the FOV on the left and right. The halo extended almost to M32, which was also very obvious, but slightly out of the FOV when centered on 31. By the time Russ and I finished with M31, we were rapidly losing the dark due to the dawn. I jumped up to the Double Cluster in Perseus, both cores jam packed with stars and in the 32mm FOV. After that a quick trip to Alberio. Interstingly, the component that I usually see as blue had a distinctly green color (Has anyone seen it this way or know why?) At that point the only thing really visible was Venus, so I went over there to see it mostly full. That's when I took the picture on the home page of this site.
Of course, by 8am it was perfectly clear. It was clear all day and got to around 110degrees. In the afternoon the clouds rolled in again, and with it the thunderstorms (again: no rain for NINE WEEKS). Here is the picture that should be in the meteorlogical dictionary under "Scattered Thunderstorms". I wish I could have captured some of the lightning. The storm was so intense at times it nearly lifted the tent off of the ground with two of us in it. The sky didn't clear until after dawn the following morning.
Yes, if you looked at the picture of the campsite you will see that yours truly should be barred from camping forever - we set up the tent under the only tree for miles. Great for shade, not such a good idea in a thunderstorm.
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