[AZ-Observing] Observing at Las Cienegas 27 September
- From: Andrew Cooper <acooper@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: AZ-Observing mailing list <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,TAAA <tucsonastronomy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 07:44:21 -0700
Las Cienegas Star Party
27-28 September, 2003
It was a good night! How could it not be? The first new moon weekend
since the end of Monsoons, barely a cloud in the sky, and those
dissipated as the twilight darkened to full night. With the clear and
classic western horizons that Las Cienegas offers to enjoy as you wait
for the stars. About 25 vehicles and telescopes greeted this beautiful
observing night. A good crowd, but not unexpected as many were suffering
from ancient photon deprivation after months of cloudy nights. The good
parts... no clouds, warm temperatures, and no bugs to speak of! The bad
parts... not much to mention.
The summer Milky Way dominated the sky, providing a clear demonstration
of an edge-on spiral galaxy seen up-close and personal. So the evening
started by visiting old favorites along nebula row. A lot of aperture
was available to those wandering up and down the old landing strip. An
18", a 15", a 14", and a whole slew of tens, eleven's and, twelve's.
And refractors from a very nice 90mm f/5 APO to a folded eight inch.
We were joined by about twenty UofA students, members of the astronomy
club. They did have a little fun getting to the site. Apparently the
lead card of their caravan missed the turnoff down the old runway and
ended up in a mud puddle just a bit further on. Well... mud lake might
be more appropriate. According to the tales told later around the
telescopes several inches of water got into the car and required the
assistance of quite a few students sloshing around to push to dry ground.
Mars wasn't too bad in the twilight, the seeing could have been a bit
steadier and it did improve late into the night. But, even at first,
what remains of the south polar cap was easily visible as well as some
albedo features. Definitely worth the efforts os the several webcams
that were busily eating up megabytes of disk space
For those few who held out Saturn was gorgeous, currently located in a
few field stars that make it difficult to pick out the outer moons from
the background. The outermost ring is currently visible in its
entirety, just peeking above the pole. Again the webcams were busy,
maybe we will see more than just Mars at the next astrophoto SIG meeting.
About a half dozen observers held out to see the zodiacal light appear
in the eastern sky, a huge glowing pyramid that appeared like a false
dawn towering into the sky. Before the last two scopes were broken down
Jupiter and even Mercury were added to the observing list of this very
successful night.
Andrew
--
Andrew Cooper
Tucson, AZ
mailto:acooper@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.whitethornhouse.com
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