[AZ-Observing] Five Mile Meadow All-Nighter Photos
- From: Tom Polakis <tpolakis@xxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 20:14:49
We were only able to make it to the meadow for the Saturday night, which
was unfortunate, as this is a great site for a large group. The meadow is
accessed on a smooth road by any passenger car. My GPS says that the site
is 3.4 miles south-southwest of the Discovery Channel Telescope site and
1000 feet lower. Setting up on the north end provides an expansive view to
the south. Those who felt inclined to look north toted their telescopes
away from their vehicles, but we were content to work from the back of the
truck at the expense of some northern horizon.
I kept busy until 1 a.m. surveying the globular clusters in Ophiuchus with
my 10-inch. Jennifer worked her way through my "Celestial Portraits"
article on Sagittarius until she had to be stopped at 3:00. We walked out
into the meadow at 3:30 to view the first bit of twilight, and anticipate
the rising of Venus, which didn't happen until much later.
The meadow is obviously prone to cold-air drainage from above, as the
temperature bottomed out at 25 degrees. Having left the house 14 hours
earlier under a temperature of 105 degrees, an 80-degree range in one day
is a personal best (or worst). I made perfunctory glances at Epsilon
Lyrae, the Double Double, every couple hours as a seeing check, and noticed
that the settling chill was not helping the seeing. Considering the
practical consideration of getting a lot of people onto a site, I don't
know if we're going to do a lot better.
I posted some pictures of people with scopes and a few of the setting moon,
among other subjects.
http://www.pbase.com/polakis/fivemile20040619
Tom
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