From: Collin Smith [mailto:CollinofAlabama@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 6:32 PM
Subject: Observation Report for Sunday, April 30th, 2006

I arrived about 9:50 and Don had just got his 12.5" scope set up.  Milton Ross was there, too, though he had had scope problems -- his go-to had gone.  Unfortunately, the scope wasn't too user friendly with the automatic slewing system not working, so he was packing up pretty much at the same time I was unpacking.
But getting the 6" F/6 Russian mirrored dob set up is about like eating cake -- easy, and I was up and looking in no time flat.  Milton asked if sticking around and looking was okay, Don and I assured him it was, and he stuck around a bit longer to grab some glimpses of a few heavenly objects.
Using a map of the sky Don had downloaded from here http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets/73P.gif ... proved to be good enough to locate the bright segments B and C of 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3.  We were a bit put off by the dates.  Apparently the dates are in Universal Time (minus 5 hours, Central Daylight Time) so the days listed are minus one for us (the locations seemed right, shown on the print out as "May 1" even though, 5 hours earlier than UT in Lubbock on Sunday night, it was April 30th.
Of course, we observed nearby M13, a spectacular sight in Don's 12.5" and not too bad in my 6" dob with the 8mm TeleVue Plossl, either.
The moon, though a small crescent, was still fairly bright and didn't set till around midnight, quite late.  We looked for Omega Centauri, and that about all that Milton was up for, so we said goodnight.
Pushing onward and upward, Don and I did an Ursa Major tour, capturing first M101, M51 and finally M81/82.  I moved my dob around a bit to get a better look at the southern skies (the worst at Skyview given its north location and the City of Lubbock's bright, skyglowing southern orientation).  I fished around and, with Karkoschka starbook as my guide, finally found a somewhat ho-hum Omega Centauri.  The sky was so washed out that it barely stood out -- nothing like its appearance the previous spring out at Emma or at Fort Griffin.  C'est la vie!
We then nabbed:
M104      the Sombrero Galaxy
NGC 2392  the Eskimo Nebula
M57
Saturn &
Jupiter
The stars were twinkling.  Even though we were lucky, and noticed only a brief, warm wind that blanketed us at one point in the night, the day had been VERY windy and apparently this turbulence continued in the upper atmosphere.  We were spared a windy evening directly, but we had to look through one above us.
We were lucky, though, to catch Jupiter with the Great Red Spot DIRECTLY in our line of sight.  It was just off center, and very noticeable, and in the 8mm TeleVue, again, the view was GREAT!
We'll probably do some kind of public star parties as the moon gets bright this weekend and the next, but whatever we do, I'll make a point to let people know, hopefully with more notice than this last observing session.
Ciao astroamigos,
CDS

From: Collin Smith [mailto:CollinofAlabama@cox.net]
Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2006 8:21 PM
Subject: Skyview tonight!
Folks,
Don and I are heading north to the Gott Observatory tonight to look at the stars.  Feel free to join us if you can.
CDS