Viewing Notes
September 30 - October 2 , 2005
Lowell Star Party IIIObsession 25" f/5 Dobsonian Reflector
and
TeleVue NP-127 Refractor
I drove up to Flagstaff, AZ with the 25" Obsession and the 5" TeleVue refractor to get in some higher altitude (7,500 feet) observing at a relatively dark site. I arrived around 6 PM on Friday evening, almost 2 hours later than planned because of traffic problems in Phoenix and freeway construction on the I-17 to Flagstaff. I took the tent trailer so I could get a better rest, and hopefully maintain a couple off all-night viewing sessions.
The site was pretty easy to find and had about 30 or so telescopes set up by the time I arrived. I set up next to Steve, Ken, Milt, and Dennis. All were great guys that I enjoyed spending the session sunder the stars. The viewing site was about 4 miles southeast of Flagstaff, so there was a 25 degree light dome to the east of the observing site. The site itself was in a very large meadow with trees along the periphery, at least a hundred or so meters away at the closest.
Viewing conditions were less than ideal, with the biggest disappointment being the transparency. This was caused by controlled burns in the area by the National Forest Service which really put a lot of smoke up in the sky, some of which can be seen the picture above.. I rated the transparency as approx. 5 - 6 out of 10. The views through the 25" of the fainter deepsky objects were pretty disappointing and I actually spent more time looking through the TeleVue 5" refractor than originally planned. The seeing conditions were also pretty poor, which I rated as 5 out of 10. Mars and the other planets were never really sharp, even with the refractor. The views to the north, sought and west were clear with limiting magnitude at zenith at approximately mag 6.
The weather turned out to be pretty good, with the clouds present during each day giving way to clear skies at night. Saturday was very overcast at times and raining around the perimeters of the viewing site. I think many of the attendees thought the skies were never going to clear and about only half of the people / scopes present on Friday evening were there on Saturday evening. Below is a picture of the rest of the viewing site on Saturday evening.
The most memorable views of the star party were:
1) Being able to see the entire Veil Nebula complex in one field using the 31mm Nagler on the TeleVue NP-127.
2) The prominences on the Sun using the Coronado SolarMax 90 hydrogen alpha filter with the NP-127. I snapped an image through the eyepiece which can be seen here.
3) Doing a side-by-side comparison of the NP-127 with an AP Starfire 130. Both scopes performed very well. The wider field of the NP-127 gave it the edge, in my opinion.
