[Chaos-l] First light @ Lillington Lane

[Jon Stewart-Taylor]

Hi all.

Our new residence for the next year or two is a surprisingly nice  
double-wide trailer, located right next to the Holly Shelter Game
Lands.  A google-map link showing the location is here:

   http://goo.gl/maps/KLSH

(Although the satellite image was taken before the trailer was  
installed).

The trailer is located in the middle of quite a wide field.  I'd  
estimate the horizons to be about 10 degrees in most directions, and 15
degrees at the worst.  There is one other house, and two horse stables  
sharing the field.  There is one glare-bomb at the house, but to some  
extent i can block it with the shadow of the trailer, so it's not  
crippling.

We moved in on the 5th, and found that the air conditioner was dead.  
Temperatures were just short of 100 all day. We worked on unloading  
the truck most of the day, and then Kathleen had to finish some papers  
for her graduate school class, so we didn't finish unloading the truck  
until the morning of the 6th.  The night of the 6th was mostly  
overcast, with a waning moon just past full, so it was hard to tell  
what the skies were like.  The 7th we drove up to Grit, VA, for a  
family reunion (high temperature 105) and stayed overnight.  The  
afternoon of the 8th we drove back (high temperature was 108 when we  
left), arriving about 10:00 that evening.

It look clearish when we arrived, so after unloading the car i got out  
my 10x50 binoculars and went for a browse through the summer
constellations.  Scorpius seemed to be both brighter and higher than  
i've ever seen it in Chapel Hill, so i started there and quickly found
M4, the large globular near Antares. Next i followed the curve of the  
scorpion, and stopped at the sting to admire the wide double called  
the Cat's Eyes.  Going east, i swept up open clusters M7 (Ptolemy's  
Cluster) and M6 (the Butterfly Cluster).  I'd forgotton how beautiful  
those are in binoculars under good conditions.

And, conditions were pretty good.  Although i wasn't wearing my  
glasses, i could see all the stars in the Little Dipper, and the Milky
Way was a strong presence.  It was clearly visible starting to the  
north in Cassiopeia, rising up overhead in Cygnus, where it had
visible detail, and running in parallel streams down through Scorpius  
and Sagittarius.  I followed it up the Sagittarius branch in the
10x50s, sweeping up M7 (the Lagoon cluster/nebula), M21, M25, M17 (the  
Omega (or Swan (or Checkmark)) nebula), M16 (the Eagle nebula), the  
Scutum star cloud, and M11 (the Wild Duck cluster).  Of course in hand- 
held 10x50s, there wasn't a lot of detail, but they were all  
observable, not just detectable. Not bad for 15 minutes sitting on the  
front steps!

Although i haven't done a formal star count yet, based on the Milky  
Way and Ursa Minor visibility, i expect on good nights this location
will be in the high 5 or low 6 limiting magnitude range. Once i get my  
10" dob out of storage, i expect i'll be spending quite a few nights
in the front yard.  I know it's a long way to come for quick observing  
sessions, but if anybody's in this vicinity, you'll be welcome to come  
by and share the stars.

J.
-- 
Jon Stewart-Taylor:  joncst at earthlink.net
Chapel Hill Astronomy: http://www.rtpnet.org/chaos
Cape Fear Astronomy: http://www.capefearastro.org/