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| no partners | | I tried to spot the new comet from my roof for a couple days, but the light field of Tucson made that impossible. So, I decided to drive over to the Chiricahua Mountains and see if I could find a place that would give me a view of the northeastern sky from up around Onion Saddle (where the turnoff to Rustler Park is). Left the house about 4 Friday afternoon and got there with some daylight left to look around. Too many trees along the road to Rustler Park, so I headed back to Onion Saddle, then down the road on the Portal side a short distance to a small pullout off the road. This had the view out I needed, so parked the truck and prepared to spend the night there until the alarm would wake me at 0340 to get ready to look. Just as I arrived an area of thunderstorms moved in, so I spent some time in the truck due to the lightning danger. Only a small amount of rain fell and when the storms moved on and dissipated, I was back outside to enjoy the evening.  About 10 I heard some noises that I thought was an animal, but it turned out to be a group of men (3-5?) walking silently up the road toward Onion Saddle. Okay, wasn't expecting that, but no problem. The clouds were thinning out, so I was able to see some of the planets and get my basic ideas where to look figured out. It was quite windy during the night up until near sunrise. There was no vehicle traffic during the entire night, which somewhat surprised me.
The other problem in my quest to spot the comet was cloud cover. I was hoping all the remnant clouds would go away and mostly clear skies would be present by dawn. This turned out to be the case, however there was an extensive area of thin cirrus, as well as general smoke/haze in the air as morning light began. I wasn't exactly sure where to look, but I finally did spot it. Pretty underwhelming with the naked eye, but I didn't have optimal viewing conditions. I am hoping it will be more pronounced later in the month in the northwestern evening sky.
This was the first time in 12 years I slept in the back of my truck, but with a couple of old Therm-a-Rest pads it worked out fine. Hey, and that was my second night away from home this year! It was nice to get out of the blast furnace, even if only briefly!  |
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