[TAC] OR 7 August 3rdQ at IHOP

Glad to hear about the fun folks had from Coyote to Plettstone to the
Peak to the Sierras over the weekend. I got to make my 2nd pilgrimage
to IHOP, the Ice House Observing Plateau, in the Carson Nat'l Forest
just out of Placerville, new default site of the tAC-SAC cadre.

The place has great horizons. Played around the bottom of Scorpius'
tail thru much of the night. Along with the horizons, the company was
great. Ooh, TACos and tAC-SAC lurkers, anytime you figure on hanging
out with tAC-SAC be ready to play rough. ZZ and the Astrogoddess and
Shneor and them are verbal ruffians. And Gary Manning, the Dude, was
even thousands of miles away.

That said, I caught a new PN off the Eye Candy List, the Little
Ghost, which did look interesting with a wavering brightness across
its surface. Then one more globular, 6139, just NW of the False
Comet, easy and goodlooking for being way low in the sky from those
northerly parts.

In my project of collecting globular clusters, this gives me some
half dozen more NGC's and Palomars north of -40 dec. One of 'em is in
Lupus and was right there just a bit to the West of 6139! Ack,
shoulda checked the chart, woulda been my first object in Lupus. In
any case a fine object for CalStar.

Tried for 6380 just south of Shaula in Scorpius. It's an official
Steve Gottlieb Nutbuster, and sure enough just not there in Felix,
nor was it in Jane's rollicking Zambuto 18. My first ever try at an
SGNB, and brothers and sisters, when the Astro Animal announces an
object as a toughie, it's a toughie. Czerwinski hissef has also taken
a stab at this globular. Turns out the maximum brightness for the
constituent stars in this thing is listed at ca 20. A clue mebbe?

(Felix is a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with optics made by Discovery
Telescopes. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, 10mm and 6mm Radians
and a TV 2x Barlow, with a Lumicon OIII.)

Caught 6369, the Little Ghost, a pretty PN in southern Ophiuchus.
Does have a kind of ghostly appearance, check it out! Another cool
object off the Eye Candy List.

Spent plenty of time staring at the Small Star Cloud, M24. Just never
get enough of that field, with all those stars and its imbedded open
cluster and two Barnard nebulae, just loaded. M15, Uranus and
Neptune, time staring at the Milky Way and the stars from the Teapot
over to the Circlet in Pisces, and then bingo the Moon was up.

Thanks to the Quality for their fine hospitality and airy banter.

More, more,

Friend Jamie

-- 
Jamie Dillon <mavericks@No-Spam> <*>
"Brookshire had passed beyond the world of ledgers,
into a world of space and wind, of icy nights
and brilliant stars ..." from McMurtry's Streets of Laredo