I found Lulin no problem in my 9x63's at 11pm last night, sweeping midway between Saturn and Regulus. Couldn't see it naked eye (too much LP) but easy to see some tail in the binoculars. The finder chart on the S&T website was helpful. --- On Wed, 2/25/09, Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Obs Ops - SLC Feb 25 sunset 6:15pm and 10pm To: "Utah Astronomy List Serv" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 12:13 PM If the clouds clear out by sunset, tonight is a favorable evening to view or image a thin crescent 24 hour old moon in Utah. See chart below the fold at:
http://www.crescentmoonwatch.org/nextnewmoon.htm
At local time 6:15pm MST, civil sunset will occur. The thin crescent Moon will be at az 285 alt 10.5. Unfortunately, there will be no other guideposts in the area. Basically, you'll have about 20 minutes in a lawn chair with binoculars to see if you can catch the thin crecsent in the advancing sunset before the Moon hits the tops of the Oquirrihs.
Ceres is at opposition tonight. As the Sun sets, Ceres and Comet Lulin are invisible but rising in the northeast sky. Ceres transits at 1:09am at mag 6. It is within a 1 deg TFOV of mag 8.5 star SAO81624 At 1:00 AM, Lulin is just outside a 1 deg TFOV of mag 5.9 star 49 Leo, SAO118380. If Lulin is not in the TFOV of 49 Leo, just slew to the east in right acension for 2 RA arcmins. You should run right over it.
At a most reasonable earlier hour of 10pm MST, use the same procedure but slew about 45 arcmins east. Alternatively, try entering mag 7.5 star SAO118431 in your hand-controller. At 10pm, Lulin should be within a 1 deg TFOV of SAO118431 at about 40 deg alt 120 az.
Clear skies - Kurt
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