[AZ-Observing] Sunday at Cherry Rd.

Hey all, 

Well, my household chores complete, I decided to try my luck at Cherry Rd 
Sunday nite.  A quick check with AJ and Steve didn't dredge up any other 
takers, but with my wife and father familiar with the location, I decided to go 
it alone and hope that others showed up.  No one else did, so now I feel like 
the golfer who got a hole-in-one without a witness!

The drive up, I ran across a series of small grass fires at Cordes Junction.  
There was also a plume of smoke off to the east of CJ.  When I got to Cherry, 
fortunately no smoke was visible or detectable, thanks to the hefty breeze.  
After checking to see if there was any better place than another for the wind, 
I decided to set my truck south of the spot I picked for a windbreak.  This 
proved unnecessary as the wind died off completely around 8:15.

At first, the seeing was pretty crappy.  Mars had a soft edge nearly all the 
time, and Antares was a fuzzball.  The double double was easily discernable 
with 120x, but a soft image though.  My obs. list was from the SAC best 110 of 
the NGC, so the seeing wasn't too critical anyhow, but it did improve as the 
night progressed.  By midnight when I packed it in, the Trans was easily an 
8~9/10 and the seeing was around a 7/10.  The Milky Way was GLORIOUS!!!  You 
could easily see all the dark rifts and lanes, and the billowing steam coming 
out of the Teapot.  For fun, I glanced at the outline of the Milky Way in 
Becvar's Atlas of the Heavens, and found that you could easily trace the 
isophote lines in the sky.  My first couple of times at Cherry were washouts, 
but the last couple of times, Oh Mama!  I have never seen the MW this 
wonderful!  I was able to get 7 obs with drawings, with the highlight being NGC 
6520, a compact little OC right next to B86(?)  The dark nebulas in this region 
are fun to trace, kind of like a celestial hedge maze.  Nice.  Another 
highlight was NGC 6819, a reverse "N" open cluster in the middle of a MW fov 
chock full of swirls, swoops, and chains of stars.  My final look was at 7789.  
It was easy to see why this is called the "white rose cluster".  The light 
chains and dark swoops easily define the rose shape.  I will come back to this 
object time and time again.

It was hard to pack it up at midnight, but work today dictated that I do it.  
But at the same time, it was a nice feeling being a bit closer to heaven that 
night, a soul cleansing of sorts.  It was definately a  welcome "astro massage."

Hope 613 is just as good, 

Thad

Thad Robosson 
Please note my new Email address...
starstarcracker@xxxxxxxxx
SAC Member, ATM subgroup Chairman,
Double star enthusiast
Phoenix, Arizona, USA  
112 08.03W, 33 32.67N

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