[AZ-Observing] Re: Weekend Observing
- From: Jeff Hopkins <phxjeff@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 11:36:11 -0700
One thing I forgot to mention.
Arcturus and Antares were brilliant/fiery orange.
Arcturus in particular was nearly directly overhead and very striking
to the naked eye. In fact I had to check a star chart to be sure that
was what i was seeing. It does not look anything like that from
Phoenix.
Brian is used to the dark clear high altitude skies of Flagstaff so I
don't know if he can appreciate the vast contrast between the seeing
in Phoenix and his area. I think you can easily get spoiled in these
high altitude dark sky areas. In addition, it will be hovering around
110 most of this week in Phoenix while a cool 70 to 80 in the
highlands. Even at night it can stay in the hundreds at midnight in
my observatory here in Phoenix. Not a joy for observing. At least
there are no bugs. I should take Stan's advice and move to Spruce
Mountain, at least make it my summer place.
I'm looking forward to Stan's Deep Impact Pot Luck star Party on the
3rd. While a half a mile lower than my cabin, it is much easier and
quicker to get to and the skies are on par with what I see at my
cabin.
Jeff
At 20:53 -0700 6/19/05, Brian Skiff wrote:
>>> The sky Saturday was a deep blue during the day.
>
> The wind changed a bit late last week, so the smoke that had
>been present regionally had blown somewhere else, so we didn't have
>much crud (that's the technical term) in the lower troposphere.
>In the last 24 hours the winds have been more southerly, so it's
>very cruddy this evening.
>
>>> The moon was exceptionally bright. The moonlight was
>>> brighter than I have ever seen it up there....
>
> The old-same Moon of course, but contrast makes a lot of difference
>to the eye. The amazing (and deeply satisfying) thing in the last
>several nights has been _after_Moonset_ right up into morning twilight,
>about 3.30a. I've just been gaga staring at the sky then. I mean,
>the rational facts are easy enough to describe, but there's some
>psychological thing about having the Milky Way dead overhead (set your
>desktop planetarium for 20h sidereal time), the early-winter constellations
>just about to come up (the Pleiades just up during twilight),
>the dead silence at Anderson Mesa, the first bird twittering in the
>distance... can't even pretend to explain it.
>
>\Brian
--
Jeff Hopkins
HPO SOFT
Hopkins Phoenix Observatory
http://www.hposoft.com/Astro/astro.html
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Hopkins Phoenix Observatory
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www.hposoft.com
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