First starlight of the evening was of course Polaris, as the Sky Commander was being aligned. Wow, the star images were soooooo tiny! Next up was Sirius. I swear tears were running down my cheeks as I gazed into the 20 mm Nagler. The star was so bright it was blinding, the star image so tiny that it seemed as if I was experiencing the sub-arc-second ocean seeing for the first time, instead of this being my twentieth trip to the WSP. It was beautiful!! You never stopped being amazed when you first experience superb seeing in the eyepiece, especially after being away from it for a couple of years!
When it was time to head to the Key West airport, Charlie Warren, Amateur Astronomy's new editor, went with me to pick up Dave. It was good to have company on the one hour drive to Key West, and to help me find the airport, since I had never been there before. We were busy having a great chat as we drove right by the entrance to the airport… We eventually found Mr. Reneke, who's plane arrived early. He was patiently awaiting our arrival.
We had a wonderful time on the way back to the star party. Dave was fascinated by the scenery of the Overseas Highway, and a bit worried about my driving on the wrong side of the road - the right side. Charlie and I learned a great deal about "Aussie speak", and eventually deciphered what "sloppy joes" were when it came to clothing. It turns out that that is what they call warm-up suits, or sweat shirts and pants, in OZ! We assured Dave that sloppy joes were the perfect dress for nighttime observing in the Florida Keys in the winter. The temperature most nights seldom gets below 65-70 degrees!
After reaching the star party, we spent the first couple of hours getting Dave set up in his quarters, and introducing him to all the people he wanted to meet. We left him happily chatting with Al Nagler, with the promise to meet him by our scopes right after dinner. Charlie and I had our 24" and 20" Dobs set up side-by-side in the Valley of the Dobs, and were certainly ready for a great night of observing.
As an introduction to the Florida Keys superb seeing that evening, I started Dave out looking at the Eskimo, NGC 2392, at 171 power using a 16mm Nagler. Reneke was amazed that while the skies did not exhibit the inky blackness that he was used to seeing back home in Australia, nor were the stars nearly as bright as usual for him, the detail in the planetary was far sharper than what he was used to seeing. So we followed the first view by increasing the power. We kept changing eyepieces, working our way through my Naglers, and viewing with 13, 9, 7, and finally the 4.8. The image never lost clarity, contrast, or sharpness, even when viewing at 571 power. The only change in the image was that it kept getting bigger in the eyepiece, until finally the tiny planetary was filling up nearly half the field of view!
Reneke was amazed at how steady the air was, and kept remarking that he had never seen anything like it at home. He had seen good seeing before, but never anything like was we routinely experience at the WSP. I told Dave about Richard Berry's first time at the WSP years earlier, and how he also was spellbound as we did the same increasing-the-power dance with an old 25" Dob back in the 80s. About the time we had dusted off the first dozen objects or so, Charlie came over and said that we had to come look at the rising Saturn in his new 20". The image was dead sharp at 400 power, and the view was spellbinding. I slipped back over to my 24" and tried the same power, but it would not keep up with the smaller optic in the 20". The seeing was nearly as good as it gets, yet the 20" was out-performing the 24" on Saturn. The 20" was also out performing all the refractors set up in the neighborhood. The Keys seeing has been measured at .22 arc second, nearly as good as anywhere on Earth! This experiment also confirms our saying that an optic over 18" can never work past the diffraction limited possibilities that the seeing imposes on large optics. The optics in the 24 have a resolving power of .20 arc seconds, and the air was just not that good!
Charlie was using a Paracor in his 20" f/4, while I had left mine in my 42" f/4 at home. I never view with The Beast without the Paracor, yet find that it is not necessary in the 24" at f/4.5. Maybe in this experiment of viewing at the edge of observing limits with the two telescopes, it may have been of some slight use, For the most part, the lack of Paracor is never noticed in the 24".
Between Jeannie and I and Charlie and Margie, we kept Dave running back and forth between the two scopes for most of the evening, until the clouds formed in place after midnight. We observed dozens of objects, and showed Dave many of the northern objects that are impossible to see from the southern hemisphere.
One of the highlights of the observing week was my discovering NGC 2440. I was just working my way around my star charts, looking at small planetaries in the 24". We were finding them using the 16 Nagler, and then going right to the 4.8 and it's nearly 600 power views. Of course since the planetary did already have a number, I did not really 'discover it', but I do not remember ever looking at it before. We ended up describing it as a normal planetary that looks like the Astronomy Gods just kind of bashed it in a bit. It has a highly distorted shape, and tons of clouds and detail inside of it. Of course you will probably not be able to see all this detail in anything less than near perfect seeing. I have asked a couple of my imaging friends to go after it with their highest-power views, and will add their finds to this article if they come in before this article makes it into print. It should be very interesting. Of course I was able to find a Hubble image of it online, but this image does not show as much of distortion that we were seeing in our slightly more modest amateur instruments.
