This event has a wider uncertainty range than I'd like, and it's only 13 degrees from the moon. But it's relatively bright, decent 32 degrees altitude, and we have 3 observers committed to it; me, Karl, and Derek. The odds of a hit on the centerline, just north of the end of Empire Grade, is 59%, and 51% on the path edge. I'm planning on driving to Locatelli Ranch to avoid Karl and Derek's tracks, mostly.
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"A Series of Unfortunate Events".... I got packed and arrived at Locatelli Meadow with 45 minutes to spare, which is enough time in general. First trouble - I had a hard time finding a location what allowed a clear view of the target area free of phone wires. Settled on the old driveway area of the now burned out ranch, but the car forced me to be observing over the open RAV4 door, which took a few minutes of finagling before I decided it was the best I could do and would suit OK. Next, I couldn't seem to get the scope to go into the fork jaws. Lost a few minutes there until I tried sliding instead of my usual straight in insertion. Next, I did my 2 star align, using Polaris and Fomalhaut, and went to the target and could plainly see it was pointing a good 25+ degrees away from the moon, not 12 degrees as proper. I immediately suspected bad 2-star align, so I started over and re-did the 2 star align, this time using Vega and Hamal. Slewed to target, and I saw the same wrong field 25+ degrees away. Could I have written down the wrong coordinates? I checked the two charts, and one chart I'd written the RA was 23hr, that was the one I was using, and the LCD chart I'd said 22hr. Otherwise, the two chart coordinates were the same. Yes, if it was really at 22hr that would put it closer to the moon. I tried that, and it indeed went to the proper field. But now, there was only 6 minutes left. I connected up the camcorder, turned on the electronics, and only after that, did I hurriedly pull off the diagonal and mount the Watec unit. But in the time and flurry to get the recording equipment ready, either the field drifted, or perhaps my footwork made the legs migrate a smidge? Anyway, on Watec imaging I could not ID the field. Now only 2 minutes left. Not enough time to swap out and re-use the eyepiece. I hunted around using the scope controls with Watec, but could not ID the field stars anywhere. I did record, but the wrong field. Afterwards, I put in the eyepiece and found I was off by about 1 degree, enough to be about 3 chip fields away and that's a little too far to ID anything. None of these errors were fatal, but all in succession and w/o enough time to recover from all, I ended up with nothing.
Karl couldn't get the hand paddle controls to work fast enough to ID the field either. He got nothing.
Bummer.
