[AZ-Observing] Thursday Night Observing Report

Just to get everyone in a mood for AASP, LSP or wherever you are heading for 
this autumn new moon weekend I'll post highlights from my notes from last 
night...

Making a long weekend of it Dean Salman and I are set up at a B&B outside of 
Gila , NM.  Not a light dome on the horizon in any direction...  Dark!!   A 
little casita, very comfortable, with the scopes setup just outside of the 
front door.

The night started a little shaky, seeing poor and clouds covering more than 
half the sky.  But as the night progressed things steadily improved, the clouds 
thinning and the seeing getting steadier. The clouds were mostly gone in a 
couple hours, with the occasional wisp making a nuisance of itself, but after 
midnight there were none to be seen.  By the time Mars was approaching transit 
the seeing was fairly good, a seven or so to my eye.

I setup both the 18" and a 90mm APO, and found myself neglecting the 18" and 
using the 90mm most of the night.  Open clusters in Cas, Per and Cep were the 
fare.  I have a 1917 edition of Webb's Celestial Objects for the Common 
Telescope.  For those unfamiliar with this work it was the standard amateur 
guide for many decades before Burnham's or today's NSG.  It is rather 
interesting to follow this guide through a few constellations with a scope 
similar in size, though I would put my Ceragioli lens set up against his Clarke 
refractor any day.

NGC663 - A dense patch in a dense Milky Way starfield, clearly visible in the 
9x63 binos, nice cluster dominated by a dozen  brighter stars with a faint mist 
of fainter stars surrounding. NGC 654 visible 40' north.

NGC654 - Small, a faint patch of stars beside a much brighter 7.3 mag star 
marking the southern boundary of the cluster, somewhat resolved, the brighter 
members embedded in a nebulous glow. NGC663 visible 40' south.

NGC7789 - Very Rich!! large, a thick clump of nebulosity just resolving into 
faint stars, stars evenly matched in magnitude for a very even appearance, 
fairly round, fades evenly off in all directions.

Mars - Beautiful! polar cap and albedo features clear and steady, the Syrtis 
Major just to one side near the limb.  The best view I have had since last 
opposition.  We read the entry in Webb as we gazed at the planet that was such 
a mystery a century ago.  Discussions of the color of the albedo features were 
accurate but the suppositions of their nature wildly the opposite.  Water, with 
suggestions of fine linear features shadowed the Lowell claims of canals, but 
to his credit Webb notes these ideas with skepticism.  The discussion of the 
polar caps was better, it had been realized at the time that these represented 
seasonal 'snows', not to far from what we know today.  Imagine what Webb would 
have made of the panorama Spirit sent us from the top of Husband Hill!

No astrophotos, maybe tomorrow, for now just a few telescopes... 
http://www.siowl.com/dropbox/Casitas20050930.jpg

Tonight the 90mm gets displaced in favor of CCD gear on the mount, with the 18" 
to use when the camera is exposing.  I'll be doing wide angle Ha stuff, it 
takes less work to setup and a lot of exposure time. I see tonight looks good 
in the forecast, Saturday maybe less so,

Enjoy the Weekend!

Andrew


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


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