[AZ-Observing] A Good Night at TIMPA

Monsoons are on the wane! Observing season is here again! No complaints, 
it has been a hot and muggy Monsoon season here in SE Arizona, but at 
least we got a good amount of rain across our parched desert landscape. 
The plentiful rains were evident in the lush green appearance of Saguaro 
National Park as I drove through Gate's Pass out to TIMPA to take 
advantage of the clear evening sky.

George Barber had dismounted his 12" LX200 from his observatory and 
lugged it out to join us. Steve Furlong proudly displayed his LED desk 
lamp made at the last workshop. A few I had not met before... Aaron 
Smith was set up for imaging with a 10" Meade and an LPI. Met a gal by 
the name of Rebecca who put away her RC aircraft at sunset and spent 
much of the night observing with us. I didn't count the scopes and 
folks, but well over a dozen photon starved observers came out to take 
advantage of one of the first good observing nights in quite a while.

Late in the evening a few clouds drifted through, no issues with good 
company and conversation to pass the time. And pass they did, clearing 
out and leaving the remaining night completely cloud free into the dawn. 
Seeing could have been better, Jupiter was swimming. But as the night 
wore on things did improve with the dropping temperature. I had to 
resort to a light jacket in the morning hours, but I wasn't forced to 
relinquish my shorts and sandals and remained quite comfortable all night.

I enjoyed the camaraderie and spent much to much of the early night 
talking and visiting. But after midnight when the few clouds and the 
crowd thinned I got down to work and really did some observing. No real 
program, just a worked my way across the northern Milky Way through 
Cygnus and up to Cassiopeia. Visited old friends and a few new objects 
with Gypsy (our NS11GPS).

The monsoons do bring out a lot of life in our rich Sonoran desert. 
Large Sphinx moths, with four inch wingspans, came through to look at my 
lit up chart table. The hooting of owls and singing coyotes punctuated 
the night. Early in the morning a Great Horned owl paid s a visit, 
perching on the RC runway's wind sock. After midnight a feminine yelp 
announced a large tarantula spider wandering through. Luckily for the 
spider I had lent Rebecca a red flashlight that kept this desert 
arachnid from being stepped on. Other observers came running over to 
look as the spider's world turned bright red from the lights. After a 
couple minutes we let it continue its summer quest for a mate.

NGC6866 A modest open cluster of a few dozen stars, well detached from 
the Milky Way starfield, sparse, bright, about 7' in diameter

B164 Large, very opaque with no visible stars in good sized patches of 
sky, oblong with a line of three brighter stars dividing the dark into 
two equal halves, thicker starfield on the west side and a sparse field 
on the east

M39 - NGC7092 Large! Bright!! loose and sparse open cluster of a few 
dozen stars, members stars are quite obvious as they are much brighter 
than the general Milky Way background, about ½° in diameter, 
distribution of the member stars seems fairly random in nature

NGC6939 A rich spray of fine 12th magnitude stars arranged in an 8' fan, 
anchored by a coarser area of brighter stars in the SW corner

NGC7027 Small, bright, quite green, hold magnification well, elongated 
2:1 east-west, with a very faint outer halo surrounding the center, no 
opening at the center or central star observed

NGC6905 Modest planetary nebula nestled into a group of stars, round 
with some structure visible, no obvious color, no central star noted, 
about 2' in diameter, slightly brighter at the center and the halo is 
uneven in brightness as well, three brighter stars bracket the nebula 
(mags. 7.5, 10.3 and 11.3)

NGC7243 Large coarse open cluster, moderately well detached from the 
surrounding Milky Way starfield, a few hundred members arranged in 
clumps with distinct voids separating, about 20' in diameter and roughly 
circular

NGC7662 Beautiful! A distinct light blue color is the first impression, 
bright! hold magnification well revealing a two shell structure, a 
bright round inner shell and a quite faint outer shell, no central void, 
no central star observed even at 350x (8mm Radian)

PK64+5.1 Campbells' Hydrogen Star, Very faint envelope around a 10th 
magnitude star at 350x, the halo is quite faint, a bit better with 
averted vision, no color noted, less than 1' in diameter, this object 
can be difficult to locate and confirm, at lower power it would be 
merely stellar, verified against the NSG photo, the NSG mentions the 
orange hue of the central star but this is not not obvious being quite 
subtle

M52 - NGC7654 A bright well defined open cluster, rich, quite clumpy in 
appearance with a few notable voids, well over 10' in diameter and 
reasonably round, homogeneous with a fairly small magnitude variation.

NGC7789 Large at over 15' in diameter, very rich, quite well defined 
despite its location on the margin of the Milky Way, homogeneous with a 
fairly dim population, somewhat clumpy in appearance with a few voids

I love sunrise over the Tucson Mts. from TIMPA. This morning's dawn was 
made all the more dramatic when Venus and Saturn rose about 37' apart 
above the rugged profile of these desert mountains. The brilliant Venus 
was easy to spot, with the much dimmer Saturn just above. Of course it 
rose on the middle of a mesquite tree from where I had set up the scope. 
So I picked up the whole Nexstar 11" and lugged it 50' south out into 
the parking lot. With the 35mm Panoptic I could just fit the two planets 
into the field. A little fuzzy near the horizon, but still a very 
recognizable gibbous Venus and the ball and rings of Saturn.

Andrew

Article with links at http://www.siowl.com/index?TIMPA20060826


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