[AZ-Observing] Re: Good Sentinel this weekend

Steve said:

<Matt Luttinen and I spent the night comparing views in our two new
telescopes, my Celestron Nexstar 11 and his beautiful 14 1/4 inch f/7
Newtonian.  Obviously, the Nexstar won out, but I am prejudiced ; ).>

Funny, I thought just the opposite!

As Steve said, Friday night was a good night; we estimated a "7" for
seeing,
and "6 to 7" for transparency most of the time. I'll bet that Steve is
one of the few who got much observing done on Saturday night, though.
Except for outstanding early evening views of Jupiter, the evening was
cut way too short (for me at least). Transparency disappeared with the
encroaching cloud bank by 11:30pm. It is too bad for those who made the
trek for Saturday, but that's the life of the amateur astronomer.

Personal highlights include:

Friday at midnight: NGCs 4762 and 4754 in Virgo. Here we have an
"edge-on" and a nearly "face-on" in close proximity (~20' apart). They
were in the same FOV at 100x and M-object bright in the 14.25" Newt. The
brightness of EVERYTHING in this scope is something to which I am still
acclimating myself. It's a problem I am happy to have! These two
galaxies have such an alignment that they appear to be two profiles of
the same object (but for the larger size of 4762, the edge-on). They
begged to be sketched, so I obliged. Extended study of 4762 revealed a
likely dark lane obscuring the "bottom," westward-facing portion of the
south-pointing arm of this fine galaxy.

Jupiter at dusk, Saturday: for the first time in a long time, the GRS
showed
real structure and a pronounced yellow-pink (me),or salmon (Steve)
color. The normally bland north polar region showed a wealth of banding
and the 
north (I think) equatorial belt was studded with white barges. Quite a
sight! I also believe I detected the shadow of a transitting Amalthea,
but now I am not so sure. Maybe next time . . .

Thanks to all for the wonderful comments/compliments on my scope. It has
been a labor of love building her (yes, all telescopes are "she"), and I
look forward to many years of viewing with all my Arizona astronomer
friends. 

We live in the best place in the world to do amateur astronomy. Thank
you
mother, thank you father.

Matt


--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please 
send personal replies to the author, not the list.

Other related posts: