[AZ-Observing] Re: Saturday night at Cherry Rd.

As a follow-on to AJ's report on Cherry Road, I was most impressed with the
variety of scopes with with to view Comet LINEAR A2, from a Pronto to an
Astroscan to an ETX-125 to a 14.5-inch.  At one point, every telescope in
the line was pointed at the comet.  

My favorite view was through Aaron McNeeley's 70mm Pronto, which gave
something like a 5-degree field of view with pinpoint star images.  My last
dark observation of the comet was on June 28, when it was a bit brighter,
but showed only fleeting glimpses of a tail.  This time, the tail was about
2 degrees long as viewed through my 13-inch.  The coma was 20' across with
a slightly brighter pseudo-nucleus displaced in the sunward direction.

Charles Morris' Comet Observation Home Page indicates a recent "flare-up"
that ended Sunday, but on sci.astro.amateur, comet curmudgeon John Bortle
insists that there was no such brightening last week.

The humidity was high enough to leave a heavy dewing that occurred after
moonrise, but it didn't do much other than produce scattered clouds.  It
was interesting to see a very short contrail high in the west just after
sunset -- another indication that conditions at the surface can be quite
different than those six miles up.

Back to astronomy, I particularly enjoyed a rewarding view of the Jackson
Pollock cluster in Sagittarius.  Ask Jennifer.

Tom

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Tom Polakis
Tempe, AZ
Arizona Sky Pages
http://www.psiaz.com/polakis/
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