[AZ-Observing] Another very good night

From: "Wayne (aka Mr. Galaxy)" <mrgalaxy@xxxxxxxx>
To: haclist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, taaaforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 20:40:34 GMT
15480 Empire Rd.
Benson, AZ 85602
hm ph: 520-586-2244

Thank heavens for high pressure systems! Though it's been hot during the days 
lately, the nights have been moderate, the humidity non-existent, and the skies 
very clear and steady (later in the evening). I think it's the calm before the 
storm...

Last night (Friday/Saturday) I tried to get out early, but the seeing was 
pretty blobby so I decided to rest the eyes for awhile and let the air and 
telescope equilibrate. It seems the seeing takes until later in the night to 
stabilize because there is typically a 40 degree F swing in temperature between 
daytime and night. I live on the east side of the hill on my property which 
gives me about an hour of shade before "real" sunset, but there is still 
thermal inertia to overcome.  When I got back up after midnight I tried to 
observe the galaxies in and around M44 as seen in Chris Schur's nice image. It 
was too late to detect more than the two NGC galaxies he circled in his picture 
because Cancer was getting close to the lightdome of Tucson, the major 
detractor of my site. Although I live 30 miles east of Tucson the light dome 
reaches up about 20 degrees. Fortunately most of that dome is blocked by the 
aforementioned hill in my yard. 

Anyway, I was rewarded for the wait and I had a very good night observing 
galaxy clusters in my 25-inch. Two nights before I spent observing galaxies 
groups between Spica and M104 and around the Centaurus area near the horizon 
since the seeing was so good. I spent last night observing objects near the 
zenith (unfortunately very close to the Dobsonian hole, sitting on top of my 
8-foot ladder, trying to move a recalcitrant scope to a given object - 
challenging to say the least!). I was able to see four galaxies in the central 
region of the difficult cluster Abell 2065 in Corona Borealis. Then I went over 
to nearby Hercules and observed three galaxy groups, Abells 2151, 2197, and 
2199, which were considerably easier. Each cluster contained over a dozen 
galaxies. Galaxies in clusters like these don't show much detail, but the fun 
is detecting the faint fuzzies in them, many times not shown on the charts I 
have, like the U2000, second edition. Did I mention that in addition to 
observing very faint objects I also spent time on some bright ones like M83, 
M51, and M101, which showed wonderful details in their spiral structure? It was 
the way a night of astronomical observing should be. Hope yours went as well. 

Clear skies, 
Wayne (aka Mr. Galaxy)


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[AZ-Observing] Another very good night

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