From: Collin Smith [mailto:CollinofAlabama@cox.net]
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 9:10 PM
Subject: Summer wrap up -- Emma & Caprock Canyons SP

July was an interesting month for astronomy. On the night of Saturday, July 22nd, 2006, a group of people met out at Emma for a great night of seeing. We saw these objects (at least):
M7 in Scorpio's tail
M81/82
M51
M3
M8
M21
M22
M17
M18
M16
NGC 6231 Northern Jewel Box
M28
M6
M24
M71
M27
M57
M31/32/101
Jupiter
M15
The view I caught of the Ring Nebula, M57 in Lyra, was the best I've ever seen in my telescope. Simply spectacular.
A number of people were in attendance including Tom English, Tom Heisey, Don Fritz, Johnny Upchurch. Also attending for the first time were Johnny's son with his fiancée, and Brian Thornton. The seeing was good, but we had an unfortunate shooting episode, with some lonely yahoo shooting off his .22 willy nilly. A few shots whizzed by us. I called up the Sherriff and told him about this plain unfriendly behavior. He eventually came out and saw us (after the second call) and went over and talked with a young man nearby. That stopped the shooting Saturday night, though Don Fritz went out again on Sunday night with his wife Jan and heard some more shots. Keep a cell phone handy and 9-1-1 ready to dial if you're out at Emma and hear some shots ring out.
The following Saturday night, on July the 29th, we drove up to Caprock Canyons State Park. Although the forecast had been pretty good, the seeing was not. Curt Pfarr, Don Fritz, Neetu Arora and I stayed up all night long, and got a blessed 30 minutes of clarity from about 4 to 4:30 AM for a small portion of the sky. We were able to look at M13, M92, NGC 6210, M27 & M57 -- all from Don's 12.5" dob, but even the targets which correspond to those in the Emma list were no better than my 6" had shown the prior week under Emma's much clearer conditions.
August was a bust with all the rain we had from the Baja Hurricane, and, so far at least, haven't had much luck for September, but I'm hopeful for better nights ahead.
Uranus and Neptune are well placed for viewing, with Jupiter setting early in the west. Perhaps we can catch these most distant planets this month or the next (now that they are the official last planets to catch!)
Please keep your eyes peeled for a nice, dark park. In our usual urban setting, Tech Terrace Park, one of the southerly homes has added some attractive bright lights that shoot right up to the sky and blast what was our best urban skyscape to a whited out oblivion. Any nice dark spot in town that can accommodate a group and is well shielded from streetlights needs to be noted.
On a tragic note, Michelle Knapp, young biologist and sometime astronomer (http://www.southplainsastronomyclub.org/2005-02-13.htm) was killed in an automobile accident on August 12th. Please keep her family and colleagues in your thoughts and prayers.
I'm looking forward to hearing from Curt Pfarr about the Okie-Tex Star Party. Also, Don Fritz has some interesting stories about his experiences in August at a Star Party just south of Quitaque.
Keep looking up. With any luck, we'll catch some clear skies yet.