Jim, John and I arrived about 7 PM and set up what equipment we had brought.
I also started shifting my weight from foot to foot to keep them warm. Boy, it was cold out there. The sky was clear, but the transparency was not good. It was still a pretty bright background.
Camelopardalis was almost at the zenith. That’s the worst place to find something with an alt-az. I brought my Big Black Binoculars with me. They are not good at the zenith but would do a fine job elsewhere in the sky. Orion was my first target.
I decided to snap some sky photos to get ‘warmed up’ and noted that as usual, focus was going to be an issue. Without the moon in the sky, the auto focus on my camera does not work, and manual focus means trying over and over.
Jim was using a 9.25 inch SC.
John had his binoculars trained almost on the zenith, at Kemble’s Cascade. What a nice view it was. I could see how it would earn a name instantly if someone spotted that in binoculars.
We eventually got Jim’s scope focused on NGC1502 at the end of the cascade. What a lovely set of matched pairs of stars it has. It’s like a special star-stamp was used to put pairs on the sky over and over.
After a while another member arrived and we shared views of Orion, and a few double stars.
At 9 PM or so, it was so cold, we decided to retire to Tim Horton’s at Nebo Road, and discuss all manner of interesting topics, while our feet warmed up.
It was our first outing of the year, and high time too. I don’t think i was out in November or December.
It can only get better now. Those long-johns are starting to sound like a good idea. John and Jim were cosy as teddy bears in them.
Our next outing is no later than January 22nd or 23rd, at Burlington. By then the half moon will make a great target, and mars will rise in the east.
Steve
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Update By KerryLH
While the crew was out at Tyneside I was able to capture that pretty cluster NGC1502 from home. The entire Kemble’s Cascade was too large to fit in the field of view of the 8in and QHY-8 but it was nice to get some resolution on this small cluster at the end of it. Next time I’ll give the entire cascade a try with a different setup.
Large version: http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=7568&g2_imageViewsIndex=3
