Willie R. Meghar wrote:

SAA observing list for the week of July 30th -- August 6th:
(Feel free to add to this list)

1) Moon: Sacrobosco, a 98 Kilometer crater, 23.7 S., 16.7 E.

2) CR 399 The Coat Hanger, aka Brocchi's Cluster. You'll most likely
want to use binoculars or a scope/eyepiece combination that can
provide a field of view of at least 1.75 degrees. Moonlight shouldn't
bother this one much! RA 19h 25'; Dec +20

Please provide coordinates (RA and Dec. when relevant) for additions
to the above list. It'll make it easier for some of us to find the
object(s) on our charts -- and/or in the sky.

Happy Hunting!

Unrelated Notes:
Due to a glitch of one kind or another I've only been receiving about
25 saa postings a day for the past few days. Hopefully this situation
will change soon.

I missed the opportunity for a follow-up on Pluto. On the 29th (UT) I
had an even hazier sky than on the 28th. Also, on the 29th I was
otherwise occupied in showing off some of the celestial wonders to a
guest. The guest had never seen the Milky Way before, so what was to
me a very hazy night was probably quite impressive to the guest. We
saw galaxies, open clusters, globular clusters, planetaries and double
stars. We caught Jupiter and three Galilean Satellites 'boiling away'
after a 100+ degree F. day. A (rarely used) green laser pointer was
handy for pointing out constellations and naked eye DSOs. The beam
showed up better than usual in the hazy sky.

Willie R. Meghar

Did you explain to the guest that he is in the Milky Way and that the
observed stars ,moving in tandem with our own solar system around the
galactic axis, change their orientation to the external galaxies like
a giant cosmic carousel ?.

No you did not, you put the Miky Way external to the Earth and pointed
on constellations which work only in celestial sphere geometry -

http://www.opencourse.info/astronomy...phere_anim.gif

The guest went away thanking his lucky stars that he never give into
the temptation of buying a telescope.