[AZ-Observing] A Somewhat Concious TIMPA Report...

Determined to make the best of one of the last good weekend observing 
nights before monsoons I wrangled a grudging permission from my wife, 
packed up a scope and headed to TIMPA to join the TAAA for a night out.

Continue reading or go to the illustrated version at 
http://www.siowl.com/index.html?TIMPA20060617

I arrived about an hour before Sunset to find four other vehicles 
waiting at the gate, fortunately I have a new key and opened the gate 
just in time for quite a rush hour with over a dozen other vehicles 
showing up shortly thereafter. A few more trickled in just after dark, 
the TAAA was out in force despite so many of our members being up north 
at Grand Canyon Star Party.

As the sunset dimmed many scopes slewed over into the glow to hunt 
Mercury. It was visible as a wavery crescent well above the horizon, 
later easily visible to the naked eye in the last sunset glow.

The Saturn / Mars / Beehive conjuction was just about everyone's next 
target, east to find with Saturn and Mars so easily visible just 1/2° 
apart in the sky. The trio fit very nicely in my TV-76 with a 22 
Panoptic eyepiece, the cluster being bright enough to not be overpowered 
by the bright planets. After giving a few looks to those around me I 
replaced the eyepiece with a camera and took a few frames. Click on the 
photo for something large enough to appreciate.

Jupiter was high in the southern sky with it's ballet of moons in full 
swing. All these years of observing and I had never realized that a moon 
could miss the disk of Jupiter during conjunction. But there was 
Callisto swinging below the disk and well clear. The night featured the 
Great Red Spot centered on the south equatorial band at sunset and a 
transit of Europa as well.

Another great thing about star parties is that if you don't have it, 
someone else will. Early in the evening Theresa came looking for a 
crescent wrench to recollimate her 16". I lent her a handful of open end 
wrenches that solved the issue. In the past I have been given spare 
batteries and other items that saved the night. In return I have lent 
out battery packs, power cords and tools. What is a star party without 
munchies to share!

After the obligatory star party socializing and a little helping out 
with the less experienced members I settled down to working on my 
observing list for the night.

I am starting to work my way through TW Webb's 'Celestial Objects for 
Common Telescopes'. I do not intend to observe the thousands of double 
stars listed in the book, but intend to concentrate on the clusters and 
nebulae. I have a 1917 edtion I was using next to the 'scope during the 
night. So far in reading the book I have identified over 244 objects 
mentioned. Most of the objects are from the Messier catalog along with a 
curious selection of NGC and IC objects. Many objects he does not 
identify, merely referring to a 'beautiful group' or 'curious void', 
later astronomers now list these as objects that, with careful research, 
can be identified in the Mellote, Collinder, Barnard or similar catalogs.

To match Webb I intend to observe the objects with my 90mm refractor. 
The scope is very similar in size and capability to Webb's 3-7/10in. 
(94mm) Tully refractor he used though much of his observing in the late 
19th century. To my surprise I was easily able to locate NGC5061, a 10.4 
magnitude galaxy, with the 90mm. True, it was an averted vision object, 
but it's bright stellar core was clearly not my imagination.

NGC5897 Quite dim at 90mm, a faint unresolved circular patch, not 
concentrated or brighter at center, fairly large, about 10' in diameter

NGC5904 - M5 Beautiful globular! large, bright, fully resolved with the 
90mm @ 147x, a beautiful blaze of stars in the very concentrated core of 
the cluster, a number of brighter members give a coarse appearence to 
the periphery, about 10' across the main body but it appears there are 
outliers out to about 20'

NGC6514 - M20 Round area of nebulosity surrounding a conspicuous double 
star, bright, the dark lanes that are so apparent with Violet or in 
photos are quite faint, the nebula split in two, not three or four, 
about 10\' north a fainter patch of nebula surrounds the 7.3 mag. star

NGC6544 Small, unresolved cluster about 5' in diameter, reasonably 
bright, well concentrated with a distinctly brighter core, M8 at the 
north edge of the field, in a rich Milky Way starfield

NGC6523 - M8 Large and bright nebula involved with a bright coarse 
cluster, dark lanes and bright knots of nebula make it a complex object, 
to the east a bright cluster of twenty 7-9 mag. stars form a distinct 
group, just to the west of this a dark north-south lane divides the 
nebula, the brightes knot of nebula in in the southwest quadrant 
punctuated by several brighter stars, faint nebula is visible throughout 
the field with the notable exception of a dark void just west and 
slightly south

Last object of the night was NGC6633, an object I had failed to get a 
decent drawing of when I observed it for the H400, this is now remedied. 
It was bright enough to compete with the light of impending moonrise. 
This bright cluster is a naked eye object, being easily visible as a 
knot in the Milky Way.

A dramatic moonrise over the Tucson Mountians finally ended the 
observing. With binoculars I could see saguaro cacti silhouetted against 
the craters on the distant rocky ridge. It is hard to get annoyed at 
something so beautiful. But with moonrise the Milky Way faded from it's 
glory and the last few observers, myself included, packed up the gear. 
The last vehicle out, I relocked the gate and headed for home.

Andrew

Andrew Cooper
----------------------------------------------------
http://www.siowl.com



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