[AZ-Observing] End of the H400

End of the H400

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Star parties are fun, but sometimes you just need to go out alone.

I love star parties, the social aspect is as important as the observing, 
and there is so much to learn from other observers, even for someone in 
the hobby a while like myself. But the goal of this night was to finish 
the Herschel 400 
<http://www.siowl.com/history/Herschel400/herschel400.html>, to do that 
I needed to concentrate, to get down to business and observe and draw 
twenty seven remaining objects. All of the remaining objects were 
galaxies in Ursa Major except for four galaxies in Sextans. All would be 
very well placed for observation on this late April evening.

Thus my choice of the TAAA TIMPA site 
<http://www.siowl.com/ObservingSites/html/obsTIMPA.html>. Not a long 
drive from home, about 45 minutes. Concrete observing pads to use. A 
locked gate behind me to avoid trouble in the night. My targets for the 
night will be well out of the Tucson sky glow at zenith or slightly to 
the northwest as Ursa Major will be well positioned from twilight to 
beyond midnight.

TIMPA is a great place to watch the sunset. There are distant desert 
mountain ranges on the western and eastern horizons to make for dramatic 
sunsets, sunrises as well as moonsets and moonrises. THis night the slim 
crescent moon was absolutely gorgeous both in the 'scope and without as 
it set into the bright Zodiacal light.

True to the predictions of the Clear Sky Clock 
<http://cleardarksky.com/c/TucsonAZkey.html> the seeing was great, an 8 
on the Pickering Scale 
<http://uk.geocities.com/dpeach_78/pickering.htm>. I was treated to 
fantastic views of both Jupiter and Saturn in the night. Transparency 
was less than ideal, I gave the night a 6 when a good night at this site 
might get a 6.5 or 7 for the dimmest stars visible at zenith.

Using an actual observing pad was nice. No Arizona dust being churned up 
by your feet, firm footing for the ladder, no tripping in the ground 
squirrel holes. A bit of my sweat is mixed with that concrete, might as 
well use it.

One nice diversion in the night was comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann. I 
located and observed both the C and B fragments, both were pretty bright 
and had good tails. The central condensation on B was poorly defined and 
was at least a magnitude dimmer than C.

Done! All twenty seven galaxies drawn and described! Not quite time to 
celebrate, I deliberately did not do the 400th. The last object will be 
NGC7000 <http://www.siowl.com/index.html?NGC7000>, the North American 
Nebula, something too large to be properly appreciated with the 18" (max 
1° field). I will ceremonially do this object on a night with better 
transparency and use my first telescope Primero 
<http://www.siowl.com/atm/Primero/primero.html> with it's 3° field.

Andrew

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



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