[AZ-Observing] Two pretty good nights, some frustrations

Well, AJ and Dick Harshaw just drove away and I am at the Antennas site
all alone.  We had two pretty good nights, in general the skies were 7/10
for seeing and transparency.  Both AJ and I did have some telescope
problems.  It took a while for AJ to get set up with the 14 inch, but once
he did it worked fine.  My problems are deeper.  The Sirius mount that has
been so trustworthy for a long time is having intermittent problems.  I am
going to clean all the contacts and see if that makes a difference, if not
it will get a trip to Starizona and I will let Dean have a look at it.  It
just suddenly "looses its mind" and will not point accurately.  Or the
buttons on the handpaddle freeze up and will not accept input.

While all the equipment WAS working we had some good observations.  We did
some double stars while the Moon was up and then took on darker skies in
Scorpius and Sagittarius.  The area around NGC 6231 in Sco is amazing,
that dense star cluster and the Trumpler open cluster with the faint IC
nebulosity is a wonderful counterplay of light and dark.  Great stuff.

Always fun to get out under the stars with friends;
Steve Coe
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