Arizona Century Mark - Not

While the some of the nation is basking in Arizona style temperatures here is a summary of our days of summer heat:

So we had at most 55 days in a row of 100° F or greater. We had 63 days total of of 100° F or greater and 11 days of 110° F or over. So it looks like we will most likely not reach the Century Mark this year.

We definitely are not used to double digit humidity

M20 Trifid Nebula & M21 Webb's Cross Cluster

The Trifid, meaning three lobed - I don't know about you but three lobed is not what I see!?! NGC 6514 (M20) is 4,240 Light years from my telescope. The nebulosity is lit up by the energy of  a star in middle of the dark veins. The group of stars in the Lower right of the photo is M21 Webb's Cross open star cluster. I purposely toned down the stars as to not blow out the Trifid. Webb's Cross is actually closer to us than Trifid at 3,930 light years. I took this photo on August 5-6, 2023. I took 189 frames lasting 30 seconds each. The air was pretty turbulent so I had to dump 98 frames, keeping only 91 for the stack. I will ultimately make another run at this beautiful nebula when the seeing conditions improve in the coming weeks.