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

[Michael Hrivnak]

I picked up a permit from Jayme today, and I'm available every evening for the 
next two weeks.  Unfortunately, this weekend looks pretty crummy.  But, if 
anyone wants to go out any night from now until April 13 (that's the last 
date listed on the permit for this lunar cycle), let me know!  I'm really 
looking forward to getting back out there.

Michael

On Friday 28 March 2008 8:30:27 pm Mark South wrote:
> Robert, I'm glad you had a great night.  wish i could have gone
> stargazing there.   glad to hear also that you weren't booted outta
> there!
> thanks to Jayme et al.  for all the hard work getting us a permit!  I
> will need to get a permit soon.
> mark
>
> *********************
> Mark South
> md_south at mac.com
> http://web.mac.com/md_south
>
> On Mar 28, 2008, at 2:26 PM, Robert Nielsen wrote:
> > 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
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Chaos-l mailing list
> > Chaos-l at rtpnet.org
> > http://rtpnet.org/mailman/listinfo/chaos-l


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