[sac-forum] Re: Cherry Road 9/11/10

  • From: "Jimmy Ray" <jimmy_ray@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2010 18:11:42 -0700

See what I mean! Already sneaking in Palomar objects, I rest my case! 

 

As far as Achinal 1, I reviewed the star fields from last night vs. charts
and images. It looks like I was right on it but only saw four stars in a
"Christmas Tree" shape. Working in sky tools, I backed off the "seeing"
until it fit last night's sky and the four star appears to be about all one
could have perceived. Dean at Starizona sold me one of his Starlight Xpress
H9C's plus a Baader LPF for imaging. It's first light may be Achinal 1 from
ASDOG. 

 

Thank you,

 

Jimmy Ray

 

From: sac-forum-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:sac-forum-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of AJ Crayon
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 5:32 PM
To: sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [sac-forum] Re: Cherry Road 9/11/10

 

Jimmy, guess you've finally figured out I'm on the dark side.  I needed a
finder chart for Archinal 1 and got it from the Digitized Sky Survey.  Just
having the coordinates weren't enough.  As for Palomar - they have already
been on the list.  Palomar 8 in 2006 and Palomar 5 in 2007.

 

In addition to the 3 above, Ru 135 wasn't very easy either as was NGC7839.
Oh well, sometimes we need a nice challenge but without the cloudy skies.

 

Glad you enjoyed the comets.  They were on my list but I had to cancel
observing plans at last minute.


AJ Crayon
Phoenix, AZ

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Jimmy Ray <mailto:jimmy_ray@xxxxxxx>  

To: sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 1:53 PM

Subject: [sac-forum] Re: Cherry Road 9/11/10

 

It appears that AJ has gone over to the "Dark Side" and seems to be bent on
picking "evil" objects such as Archinal 1. I'm fairly convinced we'll start
seeing "Palomar" objects on the list next J. I will admit at it did keep me
occupied for the entire 70 minutes of clear sky we had last night. I should
submit a "call for observations" Archinal 1 -  70 minutes of nothing!

 

I did enjoy observing Comets 103P / Hartley and 10P /Temple.

 

Thank you,

 

Jimmy Ray

 

From: sac-forum-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:sac-forum-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Richard Harshaw
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 1:19 PM
To: sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [sac-forum] Cherry Road 9/11/10

 

Last night, Steve and Rosie Dodder, Paul Lind, Darrell Spencer, Jimmy Ray
and I spent the night at Cherry Road. It was a mixed bag.

 

As the sun drew near the horizon, fingers of high, wispy clouds kept rolling
by with tempting pieces of sky as blue as the pants of a Dutchman.  After
sunset, this pattern continued, with seeing about as bad as it gets in
Arizona and transparency ranging from 0 to 7, depending on what part of the
sky you were working in.

 

From about 8:00 pm to 1:00 am, we kept up a lively game of "chase the holes"
and had overall decent results, the seeing settling down to about a 5 or 6
out of 10 and transparency hitting maybe 8 in some pockets. (Jimmy spent
most of his night trying to find Archinal 1.).  We knocked off about 1:00 am
and all hit the sack as the sky was getting pretty crummy by then.

 

Paul Lind suggested that these high clouds were forming and dissolving in
place, not blowing in from the south, and I tend to agree with that. If you
look at the weather data last night, there was high humidity way aloft and
if the air temperature at 30,000 feet or so was within a degree or two of
the dew point, clouds could form pretty fast as the moisture condensed and
radiated its heat of vaporization into the night sky, and then clear out if
a wave of warmer air blew by.

 

About 2:00 am I got up to check the sky and found it mostly clear and
crystalline. I woke up the team and by time most were out and ready to go
again, the cat-and-mouse cloud game returned.  All but Darrell and I stayed
up-we ran until 4:00 am, chasing holes in a surprisingly good NE sky-and
bagged quite a few elusive targets.

 

For an astronomy night, it was a dismal event. But for the friendship,
jokes, and good fellowship, it was a 10 all the way around!

 

 

 

Richard Harshaw

Cave Creek, Arizona

Brilliant Sky Observatory

 

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