[pasmembers] Saturday Night at Antennas
- From: Tim Jones <timj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pasmembers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:12:46 -0700
Hi Folks,
Our Saturday night DOM deep sky observing trip (not a "star party") to the
Antennas site turned out to be a great close on an otherwise frustrating Winter
season in the Phoenix, Area. Eric and Ora started things off in setting up the
trip with Dewell, Bob and I, and Albert all joining in.
Albert arrived first and the rest of us followed with Bob and I arriving last.
It was rewarding that the heat of the day had started to subside when we began
setting up and it was not as bad as many of us feared it might be. Even though
we heard from our in-town connections that Phoenix proper had been besieged by
winds, clouds, and haze, things were very clear out west.
The evening arrived with Saturn, Spica, and Arcturus appearing as the first
visible objects in the sky. Eric shared Saturn and many of her moons with us
through his 16" Dob before the sky had fully darkened and that was a great
precursor to the rest of the evening's viewing. Bob, Albert and I (all using
goto mounts) were able to align and configure things in time to catch a
beautiful Mercury crescent dipping into the Western horizon. Our next target
was Omega Centauri of which Bob, Eric and I were able to pull out of the
southern horizon. As we tracked it through the early evening, Eric was able to
really show it off in his Dob with a 20MM, 100º AFOV Plossl eyepiece. It was
an almost religious experience.
The Summer Triangle and Scorpius were the next to rise and we watched as
Scorpius crept over the hills to the south of our setup area throughout the
evening until the full tail was visible around 01:30. Pegasus and his "Great
Square" was soon to follow and targets of opportunity were numerous. The list
of available targets was huge and we all did our best to enjoy as many as our
time at the eyepiece allowed. Even Bob, who's on a mission to find faint and
fuzzy planetary nebulae, took time away to enjoy some of the more "ordinary
sights" with M17 (which both he and Eric shared with OIII filters) being a big
highlight. We watched Cassiopeia rise in the north a bit after 23:30 and we
all roamed from eyepiece to eyepiece to enjoy the various objects. As the
night progressed, the breeze from the ENE started bringing some of the haze
from the Phoenix area out our way and the seeing softened a bit in that
direction starting around 01:00.
In addition to visual observing, Albert and I spent time working with our Canon
DSLRs - he took advantage of the Frys special on the T3i - and both had levels
of success and failure. I'm still sorting through my hits and (mostly) misses.
We all made it through until around 02:30 with Bob and I making it through
until Astronomical Twilight at just a bit past 03:35. I spent the night under
the stars and woke up around 4:40 to witness the 3 day old Moon and Jupiter
sharing the Eastern horizon. Unfortunately, I was so in awe of the sight that
my logical brain never kicked in to actually photograph the scene. Albert got
a shot or two and we're waiting to see how they turn out.
Awakening fully a bit after 05:30, we all noticed that a haze had moved into
the area announcing the arrival of the first of the monsoons - the ridge line
to the west that was glorious in the previous evening's sunset was completely
masked in haze and nearly invisible in the rising Sun. As we packed to leave
Sunday morning, Dewell commented about how much more relaxing the outing had
been because were weren't having to battle the cold and the bugs. All of us
felt very rewarded with the evening's efforts, Eric got to 109 of the 110
Messier objects, Dewell uncovered many objects that he'd been chasing, and Bob
is now 21 objects closer to his goal of 110 objects in the Astronomical
League's program. Me? I just enjoyed the amazing objects I saw through my and
other's scopes.
Until next Fall ...
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- » [pasmembers] Saturday Night at Antennas - Tim Jones
