Thanks to everybody for their thoughts. I have a better idea now what to expect. The situation is actually quite promising. I am getting decent seeing in my backyard fairly consistently so I can observe my favorite bright objects (planets/double stars) from home and go out in the desert or the high country for the dim stuff which is not so dependent on good seeing anyway. I particularly like the idea of going north/high in the summer and south/low in the winter - I hate freezing :o). This arrangement provides a complete change in scenery and subject matter that is most enjoyable. I am still stunned by my first trip to Cherry Rd. Simply seeing the Milky Way as the most prominent feature in the sky made that trip worthwhile. And I cannot believe what I saw in Sagittarius. From home the Milky Way is invisible and the southern sky is obliterated to about 40 degrees altitude by the Mesa light dome but at Cherry Rd I found one amazing object after another all night long. Never had time to look anywhere else. Yes this is going to be a great hobby and learning the personality of the different sites will be a big part of the fun. Thanks again Regards Bill Wood Fountain Hills, AZ > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Polakis > > At 09:18 PM 9/4/02 -0700, Bob Erdmann wrote: > > >The best that I can tell you is that if you use an observing site regularly, > >you tend to get a sense about its observing "personality"... > > > Quite a few people in metropolitan Phoenix are now using the Vekol Ranch > site. One aspect of the site's "personality" is that seeing goes bad some > time between 10 p.m. and midnight on most nights. At the same moment the > seeing goes bad, you feel a gentle Easterly breeze that is 10 degrees > cooler than it had been up until that time. The two events are > related, as > Brian alluded to. > -- This message is from the AZ-Observing mailing list. See this message's header if you want info about unsubscribing or the list's archive. This is a discussion list. Please send personal inquiries directly to the message author. In other words, do not use "reply" for personal messages. Thanks.