[Chaos-l] Farrington observing report

[Jon Stewart-Taylor]

Hi all.  Jorge Ramirez was kind enough to drive for an expedition to  
Farrington on Friday. The sky was beautifully clear and reasonably  
transparent, although the  seeing was a bit shaky at times.  Most  
amazing of all (and those of you who've observed at Farrington will  
understand what i mean) only one car drove out, and no cars drove in!   
I didn't need to set up the headlight filter for the first time in  
ages.  It was especially surprising, given that it was so much warmer  
than it has been the last few weeks: i was expecting to suffer lots of  
late-night fishermens.

We were there from about 7:00 until nearly 11. The tourist traps were  
very nice indeed.  The Andromeda Galaxy and Orion Nebula have never  
looked better from Farrington than last night.  M35 was beautiful, and  
M41 was very nice even though it was still a bit low in the sky.  I  
also managed to collect another 5 doubles towards the AL double-star  
award: only about 35 more to go.  Mars is fairly large, but the  
questionable seeing made it boil quite a bit, especially given it  
started fairly low.  I thought i saw a dark patch at the southern  
edge, but that might have been averted imagination.

Jorge was having some trouble aligning the unit-power finder that came  
with his 11 cm Celestron.  I suggested he replace it with a Real Unit  
Power Finder.  For a small scope, a Telrad is probably just too big,  
so i was thinking of the Rigel Quickfinder.  Anybody have any  
experience with these?  Any other suggestions for a retro-fit unit- 
power finder to go on a small scope?

Thanks.

J.