Amateur Astronomer

Mt. Tamalpias Star party

September 29, 2008 on 7:01 am | In What I saw tonight | No Comments

I went to the SFAA monthly star party on the top of Mt. Tamalpias this weekend with my friend Mike.  Mt. Tam is about 20 miles north of San Francisco and at about 2500 feet above sea level, with good protection from light pollution, except for a little from SF to the south. Most of the people who’d been there before said it was one of the best night’s they’d had in years; the skies were absolutely georgeous and I saw more Messier objects then I’d ever seen in my life.  Unluckily I didn’t find any of them in my scope, I had other people point them out to me or I saw them in the binoculars.

Mike took some beautiful pictures I hope to post here when I get a chance.  I don’t think his Jupiter pictures turned out, but he got some really good star field and nebulae pictures.  One of the other attendees had a tracking drive for his camera and they experimented with it most of the night.