[Chaos-l] Observing Report From Farrington Point Last Night

[Robert Nielsen]

Yes, you read that right ... from Farrington Point!

Jayme was nice enough to bring a semi-official-looking permit from the 
NC Wildlife Commission by my house on the way home from work yesterday, 
and I thought it would be a good idea to try out the new permit first 
thing!   So I showed up at the Farrington Point Boat Ramp about 7:45, 
set up my telescope, and waited for it to get dark.

The skies were clear ... and as I noted last week ... the air was such 
that I got very stable, pinpoint stars (I think that means the "seeing" 
was good).   As a result, I got very good views of Saturn (pushed to 
about 250X magnification) and even Mars showed a tiny bit of structure 
in my LX-200 10".   The skies were moderately transparent, but the sky 
glow from Raleigh was especially bad to the east ... so my primary 
targets for the night (galaxies in Ursa Major) were visible, but not 
spectacular.    Still, I got to see M3 (one of my favorites) before the 
night was over.

Interestingly (probably because UNC was playing their game at the time) 
there was almost NOBODY at the boat ramp.  After 8:45, I had the place 
to myself.   No headlights!

One ranger / wildlife officer did come by ... shined his spotlight on me 
... and asked if I was stargazin'.    I said I was, and I had even 
brought a special-use permit.   He said he didn't need to see it and 
wished me luck and drove off.   I don't know if anyone else will get 
this reaction, and so I would highly recommend getting a permit from me 
or Jayme if you are planning on observing there ... but it seems the 
rangers have been notified already of our permit and will let us observe!

Nice work to everyone who helped get us "legal" at Farrington.   It 
appears we are back in action!

Robert Nielsen