[AZ-Observing] Re: Tonight
- From: <watson1987@xxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:09:24 -0700
Wish I'd been able to do both nights. Sounds like I missed some extraordinary
conditions for visual observing.
Not that Saturday night was anything to complain about. A clear dark sky with
average seeing and transparency is surely nothing to dismiss. Since there was
plenty of socializing to distract me, after a brief attempt at some galaxy
hunting (my reach exceeded my light grasp, I'm afraid - or the transparency
wasn't where I needed it...) I spent the evening enjoying old favorites;
double cluster, M31 and its attendants, M45, etc. I did take in some new (to
me) sights, such as the Sculptor galaxy. My strongest impressions from the
night, however, are from naked eye sights. I crashed relatively early,
sleeping under the stars on a cot. (Very nice night for that!) At some point
I woke up with Orion high in the south and Mars blazing like a warning beacon.
The winter Milky Way was beautifully prominent, as was the distinct cone of the
zodiacal light. It was the sort of night sky vista that has you setting aside
the eyepieces and just opening your eyes. It was worth the effort all by
itself.
Tom Watson
---- Skylook123@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Friday night was spectacular. From where a group of us was on the west
> edge, it was really noteworthy to see Sagittarius setting with the stars
> rock-steady. It was also quite unusual to see Sirius rise without looking
> like
> a disco mirror ball.
>
> Meade showed up quite late on Saturday afternoon; the only scope they had
> set up was an ETX-LS. They were discussing both general and specific
> observing concepts including, but not limited to, the ETX-LS. I was about
> four
> setups North, and kept listening in and learned a bit.
>
> My 18" dob mirror is in New Jersey getting installed into a new Teeter's
> Telescope setup, so I had my school star party/outreach instrument, a 10" SCT
> on an Atlas EQ-G mount. Pretty nice to observe mostly from a chair, and
> let the Synta brain go hunt things down. I convinced a good friend and
> coworker to bring his little almost-toy newt-GEM out to learn how to use it.
>
> It was a great couple of nights seeing his amazement as we found on piece
> of eye candy after another. Quite a difference from my usual "how faint can
> we go" excursions. Even with his highly inadequate instrument for the
> task, by the second night he was able to use his new exposure to hunt down
> some DSOs (M31, M11) and quite a few asterisms, globs, some more opens, and
> color double stars. I think we got him hooked! After the rattlesnake
> appearance, though, it took the rest of Friday and all of Saturday to get
> him
> back to thinking about looking up instead of at his feet.
>
> Also had another very productive, enjoyable yak session with Steve Dodder
> while we plotted the use of the Grand Canyon Star Parties to dominate the
> world. Always great to work with Steve, since we share perspective on the
> public service purpose behind the GCSP, on both rims. Get the visitors by
> the eyeballs, and their hearts and minds will follow.
>
> Keep Looking Up
> Jim O'Connor.
>
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