[AZ-Observing] Re: Crescent Moon and Mercury

15480 Empire Rd.
Benson, AZ 85602
hm ph: 520-586-2244
Four brave souls from the Huachuca Astronomy Club (HAC) at our April members 
star party near Benson saw a similar sight to Steve's. We just looked at them 
with the naked eye; the moon had a beaded appearance as it usually does with 
such a slim crescent. My wife and I refer to it as a "Pierre Moon" since our 
late, good friend, Pierre Schwaar, enjoyed hunting down new (and later) old 
moons in the Phoenix area. 
The temperature was comfortable with a minimum of cirrus clouds passing through 
early in the evening, but very windy conditions (about 30 mph) made it tricky 
to align, let alone use, the host member's 25-inch Dob. We used his 10-inch 
Meade SCT to look at M51 and M104 for awhile until it became obvious that 
wasn't going to work either. Stars were looking like the Lissajou patterns seen 
on oscilloscopes! Finally, one of the other members brought out his 8-in 
Discovery Dob and we were able to find a wind-shaded area to do a few 
observations of the Leo Droppings (M65/66 and NGC 3628), the NGC 3190 group, 
Algieba (wonderful double star, gamma Leonis), and the M105 group. 
We were about ready to give it up when the winds settled down enough to give 
the 10-inch another try. We did a short survey of the downtown Virgo Cluster 
area looking at M87, and the M84/86 Markarian chain of galaxies, and threw in a 
few globulars for good measure: M68, M3, M13, and M92. We even viewed the 
planetary, NGC 2392 (the Eskimo) before it disappeared in the west. 
We gave 25-inch another try since the owner was trying out a new drive system 
and we wanted to see how it would find and track objects. It did well, but by 
the time we re-observed M104 and saw M51with its beautiful, though subdued 
spiral arms we were about beat out by the winds that were, by 10pm, starting to 
die down. Not a bad night of observing for an initially bad night to observe!

Clear skies, 
Wayne (aka Mr. Galaxy)
President, HAC


---------- Original Message ----------
From: stevecoe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: "az-observing@fre" <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Crescent Moon and Mercury 
Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:56:45 -0400 (EDT)

Howdy all;

Just came in from viewing 26 hour old crescent Moon about 7 degrees below
Mercury, a sight that does not happen often.  I orginally saw the Moon in
10X50 binoculars and then picked it out naked eye.  As the western sky got
darker the Moon was much easier to see and Mercury popped out as well.

A very nice conjunction;
Steve Coe
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