Jimmy, if you do get a pix of Archinal 1 consider sending him a copy as he would like it. I e-mailed him about this cluster and we had a very nice discussion of which some will appear in the column when it is printed. Good luck with your imaging. AJ Crayon Phoenix, AZ ----- Original Message ----- From: Jimmy Ray To: sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 6:11 PM Subject: [sac-forum] Re: Cherry Road 9/11/10 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 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