Tempted, but work tonight. Absolutely cannot risk being tardy.

Thinking about an all night session Friday night at Conway.

Hey Pat
I might join you tonite.

Overall, a fun night! Super great that Bill turned up because it was nice to have one person with their act together. Bill talked to neighbors. He quizzed kids (and me). He showed people sights and engaged everyone who dared approach, all the while also trying his best to help me, the unhelpable.

I struggled with alignment for the first ninety minutes. Never got CGEM aligned. Mis-aligned the scope to start & made the humongous error of not first aligning my finder scope! {**face palm!**}

Score:
Bill-awesome
Me-not
Yay Bill!

We had seven neighbors, more dogs, a neighbor's kid, a wife and dog, a group of kids who'd come to hang out and talk, a massage therapist, a visit from an unmarked police SUV with working spotlight, subtropical amounts of mosquitos, not enough bats, and some unauthorized high clouds and haze.

Bill split about 1115 I think. I stayed until 130 when the clouds made me come to my senses and pack up.

I spent time with my SkySafari/Orion WiFi controller after Bill left. Pretty neat, but drains the phone battery very fast. Will have to get it working on iPad, which has longer battery life. A pretty neat gadget once I got it figured out. Not sure how it maintains alignment, or if it does. I had to constantly nudge it to alignment as I went across the sky. It also dropped connection a few times. I will say that it worked much better once I told it I was using an SCT on a CGEM.

Here's my list. It's rather short because I struggled for so long and because I revisited stuff as different groups of people showed up.

List: 0601 Sunken Gardens w/Bill

Messier 94
(Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici)
--This was the big hit for me and will go on my Favorites List for sure. I didn't know any galaxies were visible in the city except for Andromeda. Any others I tried for tonight I either didn't see or probably didn't see outside of wishful thinking.
Thanks Bill!

Saturn
(Planet in Virgo)
--I think we caught three moons tonight as well. Seeing average to below average so it only stood up to a 13mm on my scope early in the eve. It got much worse as it settled in the West until it disappeared behind a tree.

Messier 3
(Globular Cluster in Canes Venatici)

Hercules Cluster - Messier 13
(Globular Cluster in Hercules)
--Was another hit tonight. Easily resolved many stars!

Messier 92
(Globular Cluster in Hercules)
--My new favorite globular thanks again to Bill. Also now on my Favorites list.

Messier 53
(Globular Cluster in Coma Berenices)

Ring Nebula - Messier 57
(Planetary Nebula in Lyra)
--Not its best night, but miles better than last time at Adler. A respectable, if not spectacular, showing.

Messier 5
(Globular Cluster in Serpens)

Messier 29
(Open Cluster in Cygnus)

Coathanger - Collinder 399
(Open Cluster in Vulpecula)

At the end of the night, I was filled with hubris and tried out my OIII filter to try to find:
Western Veil Nebula - NGC 6960
(Bright Nebula in Cygnus)

I was grossly unsuccessful, but the deteriorating skies didn't help at all either. At least the central star, 52 Cyg, was purple.

Goodnight, Gracie.

Did you try the OIII filter on the Ring? I think it would help. An ordinary bluish-green LP filter gave me my absolute best ever look at the Ring.

You won't get it from Sunken Gardens (too low), but I think you can get a decent look at the Sombrero (M104), which I believe is in Virgo, but I always start my starhop from Delta Corvus. You should be able to see it from Horner if you're out there soon. There is a nice asterism of three stars (sort of a mini Orion's Belt) in a line pointing the way to M104 with a low power eyepiece. I always seem to find the line of stars first on my starhop, and use them to find the galaxy.

I haven't yet seen 94 or 53. Those must have been pretty high at the time, where LP doesn't hurt quite as bad.

What's the advantage of controlling the scope from the iphone (or ipad) versus the handset? Cool graphics of what you're slewing to?

Bill is amazing at starhopping and chart reading. I'm getting better, but I still have to really study the charts and go through a few attempts. Bill glances at the chart, and 1,2,3 there.

Hello Pat,

Did you invited them or just people going to the park?

Would have stopped there had I not forgotten!!


Hello Paulie,

If your schedule allows . . . and the whether forecasts looks good enough . . . I will stay after class for 2-3 hours making my trip down even more worthwhile . . . that is if you are up for it and the observatory decks are available. You can have the large scope and I will take the smaller one across the "street", I need the exercises.

This will go for the next 7 weeks as the drive once a week is enough for me. In the future I may make use of it 2-3 time a month now that I have a family membership for a year.

OK, great! Thanks and we'll talk more . . . over on class thread.

Having missed out last year on the gathering, I wanted to check out the park.

A nice intimate park, just slightly larger than someone's backyard!
We really lucked out with the streetlight being out.
We had a nice slice of shade and plenty of open sky.

The Spring stars were rotating out quickly with Saturn along with it.
Tonight, Saturn looked great naked eye as a pairing with Porrima.
Thru low power Antares 32mm and 5in Newt, the pairing made a nice triangle with another star.
Thru high power Ethos 13mm and 9.25 Edge, the shadow of the rings on the planet were distinct.

Pat, you'll be surprised on how many galaxies are still within inner city reach.
M94, the Croc's Eye is magnitude 7.9! M104, the Sombrero is 8.7 [but hidden behind the trees]
Next transparent night, try the nice Bode pair M81/M82 and M51, the Whirlpool in Ursa Major.
Also M65/M66 in Leo.

Note: what Pat didn't mention, I pointed to him wrong alignment star in Leo. ouch!

I'm going to add one more galaxy to Bill's list above: M101. I've only seen it once, but it's something I keep meaning to see again. It's not a bad starhop from the Big Dipper, so this time of year you can catch it high. Of course with your go-to aligned, you won't even need to starhop.

And get over to Horner when you can to catch M104!

What about M87 in Virgo? I've never looked for it. Might be worth a try.