Well, it’s been a long, dry astronomical season for me. First, the Weather got me down and second: I discovered a couple more hobbies. One, I already had an interest in was Photography. The other is riding - as in an ATV, OHV or Quad: whatever you like to call it. My long-time partner at work invited John and I up to her families cabin in Duck Creek, Utah. It’s beautiful: high elevation way up in the cool pines with wildlife and water all around. At the time I went just to get away from Vegas and I even took my Orion 100mm AstroView! I discovered it’s hard to observe from amidst very tall pines trees: they kind of obscure the view a tad! This was in the summer of 2005. Everybody else went up to go riding and just because I didn’t want to argue with Carrie, my partner, I decided to go for a ride with them. And what a blast I had! When we got back into town I immediately started to research ATV’s and two weeks later two of them were sitting in my backyard. Well, not just ‘sitting’: they’re locked up tighter then Ft. Knox and more secure then NORAD! So, that’s pretty much were I’ve been over the last 3 years: riding instead of observing. But, in my defense: the weather has still been uncooperative on new moon weekends. Another thing that’s been taking up some of my time is that of waiting to see what my future with Nevada Highway Patrol might be. But in the meantime, I’m still doing the 911 Ambulance thing hoping to make it to NHP. If not, I’ve decided to sell almost everything, buy a small camper and hit the road with my dog, ATV (Which I’ve named ‘Peg’ - short for ‘Pegasus’. She is after all a Polaris and she’s quite a beautiful Horse!), telescope, guitar, camera and books. Not really but it’s a nice fantasy. Ok, back to the matters at hand.

As I mentioned, it’s been a long time since I’ve done any stargazing that’s worth mentioning. During my ‘time off’, I’ve had the pleasure of visiting with Thom and Ellen on their trips to Las Vegas. The last time they were here I asked about Two Trees. Thom said it would be in April so I made plans to go there. John and I decided to make it an ATV/Telescope experience. We didn’t have enough room to take everything so our friend Shannon let us use her little trailer. Still, it was barely enough space. You’d think we were planning a 3 week African Safari!

We got up early at 6am to start packing. Yep, I was to say the least: bleary-eyed. And it shows!

        

On the road by 10am

    

The day was nice but with high, thin clouds overhead. These days I by-pass Hoover Dam and go thru Laughlin. We got delayed almost an hour at the Bridge due to an accident on it: some kind of delivery truck had overturned.

We stopped in Kingman for lunch and in Ash Fork for gas which by the way was over $4 a gallon: true highway robbery! I was surprised to see some snow still on the side of the road near Williams and Flagstaff and lots of it on Mt. Humphrey.

I sucked up my fears and took the Cottonwood Canyon road which is the ‘short-cut’ to Sedona. We stopped at Safeway to get our ‘Red Rocks’ pass and finally made it to Two Trees sometime around 4pm. It was a longer drive then I remembered.

At the observing area we found that Thom had already arrived: once again having a tire issue on the way: this time with his trailer. No, again with his trailer. Heck, it was a tire issue! But, he made it unharmed. I was very surprised to see a Grand Canyon friend there: Chuck and his Orion XT10” and that sweet little Vixen he has were there too! Chuck has the coolest sleeping tent/cot combo I’ve ever seen: I should get one. Chuck also has a nice little Solar ‘scope and since there are no sunspots it was nice to see some prominence. The observing area was a lot more rocky then it was last visit but we found a spot fairly even and good enough for the Dobs and tents. I must mention that this trip, besides myself and John, John’s girlfriend Lindsey also came along. And, I decided to bring Sierra too! By the time we got our camp and telescopes set up, the sky was still looking as if it were going to be a little soft. Dennis made an appearance and Scott from Sedona also showed up. Thom made some killer soup: beef, barely and mushroom.

For the first night, I was super tired only getting about 3 ½ hours of sporadic sleep in the last 48. The skies cleared up nicely but I didn’t do any serious observing. . Most of the night I spent doing casual observing and getting myself reacquainted with the night sky. John had the 10” Dob up and running first and of course, the first object has to be M42: The Great Orion Nebula. I spent some time looking for some obscure magnitude 14 galaxies in Gemini and maybe found one of them before giving up and moving on to the 42mm EP and just gazing around Auriga and Cancer. Saturn was ok but Alpha Centauri was stupendous! I did manage to eek out one new galaxy in Leo. I think John and Lindsey did more observing then I did and Sierra had the right idea: sleep! I finally hit the hay at about 1:30am.

I think as usual on a Saturday morning at Two Trees, I like everybody else woke to the sound of RC Aircraft flying nearby. We made breakfast, ate and then Thom properly scolded us for not getting out on our ‘Horses’ sooner! We suited up and hit the trails but not before Thom warned us about the myriad of uncharted territory that lay ahead of us. I didn’t tell him I have GPS - shhhh!

    

The weather was great, the trails were great and the views were great. We had a great time just not enough of it. In the photo to the left, you can see (with a magnigying glass...or telescope if you have one handy!) our camp at Two Trees.

    

    

When we got back from riding, we found that more people had arrived. Whether to try their luck at the Messier Marathon or just to observe, I don’t know. I just know it was great to meet new people and to see old friends.

Before nightfall, we went for another ride getting back just as the sun fell below the horizon.

    

The sky looked better then it had the night before and I was looking forward to a more serious observing session. Thom made some excellent chili: enough to feed the masses that had assembled.

During the night I observed 22 new objects: 19 Galaxies and 3 Open Clusters: none of them Messier Objects. But one of them should have been! One of the coolest and probably one of the least observed and overlooked objects is NGC 2403. It’s a Galaxy in Camelopardalis: part of the sky I discovered I had but almost ignored in the past. Luckily for me, during the course of the night, I had wandered over to talk to Scott and he told me about this excellent Galaxy. At magnitude 8.9, it nearly jumped out at me and was something worth spending some time looking at rather then the faint magnitude 12 through 15 Galaxies I was trying to find! Thanks Scott! Oh, by the way, I must apologize to Adam for making him find and confirm 'Arp 1' for me. Yep, it was kind of small and very dim but three Galaxies in one view was too good to pass up!

So, I stayed up until twilight. During the night we saw some great shooters and a near Earth-Grazer or two! I missed saying goodbye to almost everybody because I was sleeping. Hopefully I’ll see them at the Canyon. That means you Ellen! And you too Ara - I hope all is well. Has anybody seen Ron? I need another ‘f/ratio’ lesson!

The ride home was looooonnnnngggggg! And windy too. It’s too hard to explain but because of the severe wind, on the way home, the base to my 16” Starfinder got broken. Now I have a project! We had a wonderful time and thanks to everybody at Two Trees!

For Page Two of mainly just photos, please click the big Star below.

NEW OBJECTS OBSERVED:

- NGC 2939 (Gx) / Mag: 13.4 / Size: 2.6' x 0.9' / Leo
- NGC 2331 (OC) / Mag: 8.50 / Size: 18' / Gemini
- NGC 2291 (Gx) / Mag: 14.2 / Size: 0.8' x 0.8' / Gemini
- NGC 2274 (Gx) / Mag: 13.4 / Size: 1.8' x 1.8' / Gemini
- NGC 2333 (Gx) / Mag: 14.2 / Size: 1.3' x 0.8' / Gemini
- NGC 2339 (Gx) / Mag: 12.5 / Size: 2.7' x 2.7' / Gemini
- NGC 2395 (OC) / Mag: 8.00 / Size: 12' / Gemini
- NGC 2418 (Gx) / Mag: 13.4 / Size; 1.8' x 1.8' / Gemini
- NGC 2486 (Gx) / Mag: 14.2 / Size: 1.9' x 1.1' / Gemini
- NGC 2487 (Gx) / Mag: 13.2 / Size: 2.5' x 2.2' / Gemini
- NGC 2492 (Gx) / Mag: 13.8 / Size: 1.0' x 0.9' / Gemini
- IC  2157 (OC) / Mag: 8.40 / Size: 5' / Gemini
- NGC 2403 (Gx) / Mag: 8.90 / Size: 18'' x 10' / Camelopardalis
- NGC 2684 (Gx) / Mag: 13.8 / Size: -.-' x -.-' / Ursa Major
- NGC 2639 (Gx) / Mag: 12.6 / Size: 2.0' x 1.3' / Ursa Major
- NGC 2681 (Gx) / Mag: 10.4 / Size: 3.8' x 3.5' / Ursa Major
- NGC 2693 (Gx) / Mag: 12.7 / Size: 2.7' x 1.7' / Ursa Major
- NGC 2756 (Gx) / Mag: 13.6 / Size: 1.7' x 1.1' / Ursa Major
- NGC 2701 (Gx) / Mag: 12.7 / Size: 2.1' x 1.4' / Ursa Major
- NGC 2857 (Gx) Arp 1 / Mag: 13.2 / Size: 2.4' x 2.2' / Ursa Major
- NGC 2856 (Gx) Arp 1 / Mag: 14.0 / Size: 1.1' x 0.5' / Ursa Major
- NGC 2854 (Gx) Arp 1 / Mag: 13.8 / Size: 1.9' x 0.6' / Ursa Major
- NGC 4605 (Gx) / Mag: 10.8 / Size: 5.5' x 2.3' / Ursa Major