An advantage to your "nap until moonset" approach is possibly that the sky tends to get a lot better several hours after sunset. At Hovatter Norte, we often note even on the clearest nights that everything below about 30 degrees is decidedly less black than above after twilight and that this gradually descends down to the horizon as the evening progresses. By midnight, it can be really black all the way down if we aren't looking toward any kind of city. My own prejudice is that this is the skyglow generated by UV blasting the upper atmosphere all day. Toward midnight, ions lifted to higher energy states have pretty much cascaded down to lower states and quit giving off light. Anyone know if this is a reasonable explanation? I haven't looked into the official version of whether you can see skyglow. The observation is certainly not something we are imagining. BTW: If the predicted clearing trend continues, I am doing a one-nighter at Hovatter Norte Wednesday night. Paul Knauth -----Original Message----- From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of AJ Crayon Sent: Tue 12/11/2007 3:06 PM To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Geminids For a long time I have wanted to do an early moon rise observing run. That is to say, rest just after sunser and while the moon is up. Then, about time moon sets, get up and observe. Sounds like that would be an excellent, and different, kind of session. If I were to get serious about observing the Geminids going east of aurora Phoenicis would have somr sort or priority, with due diligence to Tom Polakis's note about peaks and rises. Clear skies anyways, aj ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Jones" <Telescoper@xxxxxxx> To: "AZ-Observing" <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 12:30 PM Subject: [AZ-Observing] Geminids Should be clear for the Geminids Thurs and Fri night. Any all-nighters going on? Moonset 10:10 pm on Friday. Jack -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list. -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list. -- Binary/unsupported file stripped by Ecartis -- -- Type: application/ms-tnef -- File: winmail.dat -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.