Contributed by: Fred Rains
Subject: Early 2025 MM report
Date: Mar 23, 2025, 2:13 PM

I had our club's Chandler Mountain darkish site all to myself on Friday night, 
March 21, 2025. Skies to the West were cloud free all night and the East 
cleared up after 8pm. Seeing and transparency were 'meh. I could see one star 
besides Polaris in the tail of the little dipper making the transparency a 
mag4 and the seeing was a 3 on the Pickering scale. Not a good night for 
planets.

I didn't have my SQM meter but the last time I measured it at Chandler it was 
20.5 and that's probably a good number for last night. The horizon haze reached 
up to 30 degs.

Still - any night under a cloud free sky is a good one. I recorded 105 of the 
110 Messier objects  I missed M33 and M74 at sundown and M72 M73, and M30 as 
the sun was rising. I was using a Celestron CPC800 with focal reducer and a 
13mm Nagler eyepiece. And, yes, I used the CPC's goto so it may not be official 
but it sure was fun.

The wind picked up around midnight so there was no dew (or frost - low temp 
was 34)

A waning half-moon moon rose around 2:30 and was between Sagittarius and 
Scorpio making things a little more difficult there. Tonight it will rise an 
hour later but it will be closer to the objects rising last. 

Astronomical dawn was at 5:24am and I left the field at 6:15am.

I chose this week because next week's extended forecast is not promising. I 
chose Friday night so I'd have a chance at staying awake in Church on Sunday... 

Good luck!

Fred


Fred Rains
Birmingham Astronomical Society of Alabama
http://www.bas-astro.com/