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(meteorobs) North & south Arizona skies



  Also not to go unnoticed were the excellent skies in AZ. During our trip I 
saw the best skies ever. High altitude, dry air and good lighting (especially 
in Tucson and Flagstaff) make this area the astronomers wonderland.
  First - Mt. Lemmon. In spite of it's proximity to Tucson (32km) the skies at 
Mt. Lemmon are very good. Reaching 50 degrees up in the evening, the light dome 
from Tucson decreases dramatically as night progresses and by midnight it is 
only 20 degrees high! Other parts of horizon are true dark. I rate the sky 
Bortle class 2 to 3 (it was definitely #2 late during the first night!). Top LM 
reached 7.1! I saw the zodiacal light go 100 degrees across the sky, casting 
shadows, the Gegenschein 10x15 degrees patch of light and the zodiacal band a 5 
degrees wide wisp of light. M33 was easily visible with the naked exe, with 
direct vision most of the time. Excellent!
  Second - 15 miles SE of Flagstaff. Beats me where exactly we were, but the 
sky was great there as well. Flagstaff has amazing outdoor lighting and the 
*faint* light dome was only 10 degrees high from this location. Being there 
around 1 am we didn't see the zodiacal light well, but the  Gegenschein was 
easily visible as was the zodiacal light. All in all, the sky was somewhat 
better there with LM reaching 7.4! Bortle class 2. 
  Last - Kaibab national forest. Returning from Grand Canyon we stopped 
somewhere in Kaibab national forest (40 miles north of Flagstaff). The sky was 
breathtaking there, in a completely different league that the previous two 
locations. The Milky way was bright enough to easily illuminate the landscape 
and our vehicle, in Cygnus going from the tip of west wing past the tip of the 
east wing, towards Pegasus. It was very bright and not unlike white marble. 
Gegenschein was a huge 25x20 degrees patch of yellowish light and the zodiacal 
band was a distinct 10 degrees wide band of light running along the ecliptic. 
M33 was easily visible with direct vision, displaying a distinct core, even 
with the naked eye. Above, NGC 752 open cluster was reminiscent of M44 in usual 
rural skies. Airglow was faintly visible all around the horizon, hidden by some 
haze near the horizon. There were clouds up to 5 degrees off horizon running 
from W to NE, completely dark. Jupiter was bright enough to be quite annoying 
and seemed to deteriorate LM in Gemini. LM was way off IMO charts, around 7.8. 
The horizon was dark all along, except a 5 degree interval in the south where a 
hardly perceptible brightening from Flagstaff was visible up to a height of 3-4 
degrees. In 14 minutes of casual observations I spotted 13 sporadic meteors, 
all +4m or fainter. Bortle Class 1 I think...

  Just remembering the skies of Arizona, especially the Kaibab forest makes me 
smile :)

Clear *dark* skies!

Jure A.

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