Late November Observing

I came up to Arunah Hill this weekend for some observing. While both Friday and Saturday nights were both clear, the wind prevented any observing on Friday. This was unfortunate forTom Walker and Kevin Collins who showed up with Kevin's20" Dob.

Saturday night was a great night for observing. Joe Z. opened up the Gaertner for the scout troop he was hosting while Matt Paine, his friend Tom from Seekonk and I were at the summit. Tom was doing some imaging but the dew was winning the battle over his C8. Matt and I were cruising the sky with my 16" scope. M33 showed alot of detail while the Orion Nebula was incredible. We were also able to pick up theHorsehead using an H-beta filter. We also observed M31, M1, M44, M15, the Blue Snowball, Double Cluster and other objects including the California Nebula.

After Tom left and Matt turned in I stayed out until after 4:00 am. I took a look at Mars and Saturn, the Cone and Rosette nebulas and M81/M82 but the highlight came just after 4:00 when a Leonid fireball lit up the sky and ground. I quickly looked up to see the bright glowing trail this fireball left. The smoke trail was visiblefor almost 10 minutes as the upper level winds shaped it into a donut. I then called it a night. All in all a pretty good weekend at Arunah. Matt installed the radio in the clubhouse and it is now up and running. Here's hoping the snow holds off so we can get some observing done in December.

Barry