Cottonwood, 5/25/06

Stargazing from the Cottonwood campground in Joshua Tree National Park Thursday night. Arrived at my regular site B15 in the upper loop about 6:20pm. Sunset at 7:30pm. A few other stargazers in the camp tonight... Chuck from Yuma is just across from me with his 5" Meade and Lee and Bonnie from British Columbia are in the lower loop with their 17.5" truss dob. I have my TV76 and Nikon 10x42 SE binoculars. Sky conditions aren't great. The day had been very clear but haze moved in by late afternoon. Still, it's always impressive how much more i can see from here than from my backyard. Otherwise temps are comfortably cool and no wind.

Didn't take formal observing notes. Seems now i'm just happy to be out under the stars and it doesn't matter so much if i take detailed notes or not. A partial list of objects included galaxies M104 and M83 in Virgo, planetary 4361 and galaxy 4038/4039 in Corvus. In Ursa Major galaxy 3184 between Tania Borealis and Tania Australis, galaxy M108, planetary M97, galaxies M109, M101 and M51 with companion just over the border in Canes Venatici.

After a while i walked over to visit Lee and Bonnie and shared some great views through their 17.5". The Omega Centauri cluster was spectacular as was 5128 Centaurus A. We toured some wonderful edge-on galaxies as well as the M81/M82/3077 "trio" in Ursa Major. On returning to my site i also visited Omega Centauri and Centaurus A plus the Leo Trio and the Ursa Major trio. Spent another hour or so in the lounger just wandering around with binoculars. Slept for a few hours and got up at 3:30am to see the B and C components of comet Schwassmann-Wachmann rising over the Eagle mtns. Both easily visible and fitting in the same binocular field. Unable to find G or R components.

Florian
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