A clear night at Ammersattel

Night Friday/Saturday, March 4/5, 2011

A fine night with both good seeing and transparency, with Christian; we took along our two Dobson telescopes. Due to impending fog
in the Alpine uplands we went to this remote site (alt. 1080m) in the Alps - dark, but with considerable obstruction by nearby mountains.
So Christian had to give up his initial idea of a Messier-Marathon, planned for the free-horizon site Geigersau - now in the fog. We were
joined by a Brazilian couple, Durval and Monika, on a trip through Europe celebrating a wedding jubilee. He had a lightweight carbon-fiber
10-inch and had contacted our club asking for sites to observe the northern sky. We also talked about the Southern Sky, it's always tempting
to observe down there.

But their outfit was not fully compatible to the Alpine winter, so Monika soon left for the Motorhome. We showed various northern highlights,
and Durval was very impressed, also by the Ethos eyepieces: "I never saw M42 colored, the sky near Rio de Janeiro isn't that good." And since
the seeing was good, we could easily increase the magnification up to 300x when observing a detailed M51 in my 16-inch. We moreover saw a
knotty M101, NGC 4565 or the center of the Virgo cluster. Interesting details could be seen in the Rosette nebula (with OIII filter) and "The Box",
the NGC 4169 galaxy group. Around midnight Durval could no longer ignore his cold feet and went to sleep. Our moonboots and their alien look
left an impression - I know nothing better to keep the feet warm.

From left Monika, Durval, Ben and Christian

21mm Ethos, moonboot and Durval's 10-inch

A Brazilian with a northern constellation

Christian with his 12-inch


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