Tom, The conversion is simple enough: take the Decimal Minutes and multiply by 60. This will give Seconds. e.g. 33 21.863N, 113 01.904W .863*60=51.78 1.904*60=54.24 Thus, Saddle Mtn is N 33d 21m 52s, W 113 1m 54s Most devices that utilizes GPS cords (GPSr's etc) can switch between formats Clear Skies Rick Tejera President, Editor SACnews Saguaro Astronomy Club Phoenix, Arizona www.saguaroastro.org saguaroastro@xxxxxxx -----Original Message----- From: sac-forum-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:sac-forum-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Stars Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 9:06 PM To: sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [sac-forum] Re: Wednesday Night's Site Evaluations Tom Is there a program that will convert the format that you are using for Lat/Long to DD.MM.SS Thomas Hilton -----Original Message----- From: sac-forum-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:sac-forum-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tom Polakis Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 7:08 PM To: sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [sac-forum] Wednesday Night's Site Evaluations Last night, Glenn, Peter, Jenn, and myself went on a long round-trip to evaluate the sites that are being discussed. Our goal was to assess the local-light situation at the sites. If you read no further than this sentence, I'll say that it was an unanimous conclusion that the "Gas Line" site Steve and AJ found at Dobbins and 435th Ave. is superior in all respects. There were zero annoying local lights around the horizon, plenty of room to set up scopes, and no passing traffic. The zenith sky brightness measured by Peter's and my Sky Quality meters ranged from 21.2 to 21.3. On the return trip to Phoenix, we reached the I-10/I-17 stack in exactly 1 hour. All of this was extremely easy driving, with only three miles approaching the site being very smooth dirt road. Kudos to Steve and AJ! If I had my way, we'd abandon Flat Iron immediately, and start using this site. Before the inevitable argument that Hovatter is nearly as close comes up, has anybody timed the drive from there to the I-10/I-17 stack for comparison? I'm guessing that it's in the neighborhood of 1:45. I wish I had as rosy of a report for the site I was partial to. It is along Salome Road, and very easily accessible from I-10. But as Steve and AJ found out, this whole area is just too close, and lights from I-10 and rest areas/truck stops ruin the experience. We found a little nook 33 27.756N, 113 00.691W in which ironwood and palo verde trees mostly blocked the lights, but some lights were still visible. I would estimate that the savings in time over Steve and AJ's site would be about 10 minutes. Anywhere east or west of this site was just too lit up. It's too bad, as the aesthetic scene of Canopus passing over Saddle Mountain was pretty amazing. As a side note, we approached the good site from the west, as it was a way to get around Saddle Mountain. This entailed driving all the way to Harquahala Valley Road past a blazing power substation. The local lights started being blocked by Saddle Mountain about 5 miles to the west of the gas line site. Since this was a school/work night, we did not make it to the Dirt Blvd. site. Coordinates for the site at the gas line are 33 21.863N, 113 01.904W. But you can't miss the white "guard rails" made out of rocks. Tom