[AZ-Observing] Weekend Observing
- From: Jeff Hopkins <phxjeff@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 10:24:46 -0700
Like some others I got some good observing in Friday night. Also some
strange things. While the sky looked great here in Phoenix Friday
night and my UBV photometry was excellent, the infrared photometry
(JH bands) was horrible. It was worse directly overhead, where it
should be best. It was almost as if a bubble of pollution hovered
near the zenith. I tried measuring extinction in the JH bands and got
an inverse extinction. The more air mass (further from the zenith)
the higher the net star readings. This has happened several times
before. Very strange.
Early Sunday morning I headed out to Rainbow Valley (Southwest of
Phoenix) to watch the rocket launches. Very interesting. The
Hillbilly Rocketry group of Phoenix launched there big Gila Monster
rocket (21 feet high and 16" diameter. An excellent launch and
recovery. Many other launches were made of other rockets of all sizes.
See http://ahpra.org/local_launch.html
What struck me was the area where the event was held would be great
for a close dark sky site too. It's less than 30 minutes west of me.
Jeff
--
Jeff Hopkins
HPO SOFT
http://www.hposoft.com/Astro/astro.html
Hopkins Phoenix Observatory
7812 West Clayton Drive
Phoenix, Arizona 85033-2439 U.S.A.
www.hposoft.com
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