[AZ-Observing] The 2004 AAMM recap

Just got out of the tub and feel human again. Last night, while not looking 
very promising at the outset turned into a great night after all. Although most 
of the evening twilight objects were at some pint or another shrouded by the 
cirrus clouds that threatened all afternoon, Patience and determination 
enabled me to bag them all, including the elusive M74. Once done the skies 
pretty 
well cleared up letting me coast through the list up to Virgo. Just as I was 
starting, the clouds decided to play hide & seek with the fair maidens 
galaxies. 
Once again patience paid off and by 0130 I had all the Virgo Cluster objects. 
I have to say that the weathers fickleness made this marathon the most 
challenging I've run as you certainly had to be ready to alter your plan in 
order not 
to fall behind. Not wanting to chance the wx, Matt Luttinen & I decided we'd 
experiment with seeing just how ugly an object can look. We started hunting 
them down as they came over the horizon. Matt had the advantage wit his Digital 
Setting circles, while I use my 60 mm ETX as a $100.00 Finder. I set the ETX 
on the object, note in it's finder where it was pointing and then aim Gert at 
the same spot. I'd say we found at least 10 object within 5 degree of the 
horizon and probably 10 more with 7. 
As Andrew reported, the clouds did hang around in the East a bit and made the 
last 4 objects (M2, M73, M72 & M30) interesting. M2 didn't pop out of cloud 
till after we had finally secured M72 & M73. We thought for a minute that we 
might end up with M30, but miss M2, Wouldn't that have been ironic. As it turns 
out Matt Rich Payne & myself huddled and worked out just where M 30 would rise 
so we'd be ready for it. Alas, all we ended up with were clouds. In spite of 
missing 110, I can't say I'm disappointed with 109, After all, given our 
forecasts of doom in the afternoon, things worked out quite nicely.

Just call me "Glad I Went"
Rick Tejera
Editor SACnews
Saguaro Astronomy Club
Phoenix, Arizona
SaguaroAstro@xxxxxxx
www.saguaroastro.org


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