Two clear nights in three days – Wow. The ‘Scope Nights’ weather app had been showing excellent viewing conditions for this evening/morning for a few days, so I was able to plan what objects I wanted to observe for this session in advance. The 51% illuminated Moon was up at an altitude of 33 degrees at the start , but became less of a problem as it set towards the latter part of the session….
Observing Session: 25, December
Well after a slap-up Christmas Dinner, the last thing you might think of doing is sticking your head out the door to see if it’s clear. Well I did and it was. Earlier that day my ‘Scope Nights’ weather app said it was going to be clear between 21:00 and midnight – But Oh come on, this is Late December and I have 12 days off work. What could the ‘Cloud Lady’ possibly be thinking…
Observing Session: 3, December
This evening really pissed me off. Conditions were pretty good and looked reasonably settled. This was the first night where it felt really cold outside and we were both layered up, doing a very good impression of Dunlop Man and Women. The humidity was low and dew was absent throughout the session. All very nice, but with the Moon up and 91% illuminated, took the shine off the session. I’m running out of star clusters…
Observing Session: 19, November
One of those sessions where Weatherpro HD said there would be a window of clear skies for about an hour. With the lack of observing time recently, I’m starting to exploit even the shortest of observing opportunities that are on offer at the moment. Session Data Date: 19/11/2014 Time: 19:21 – 20:14 UTSeeing: I Perfectly Stable, Transparency: IV Somewhat Clear, Temp: 11c, Air Pressure: 1013mb, Humidity: 86%, Wind Speed: 9mph. NGC7243, Caldwell 16 In the Altair Astro 250mm, 40mm Plossl,…
Observing Session: 5, November
Well another poor few weeks for observing, so I have been forced out of desperation to go out on Guy Fawkes night with a Full Moon for company. Most of the fireworks must have been let off earlier, as I didn’t see anything go off while I was out. There was a little smell of smoke in the air, but nothing that was visible lurking 20 degrees above the horizon that I could see….
Observing Session: 26, September
Well it doesn’t happen very often, but I awoke at 2:30 in the morning and looking out the window, the sky was clear. Feeling remarkable spritely, I thought “What the hell’ and decided to open up. This was also an ideal opportunity to give the new filterwheel another play. While I looked at a number of objects I really just wanted to see how the views changed using the different filters, so apart from…
Observing Session: 24, September
What’s this? Clear skies and no Moon! A perfect night to try out my new Turret/Filter wheel combo. It’s also the first real chance to get a decent look at the Veil Nebula in Cygnus. I’ve tried to observe it a number of time with my own owns as well as 100mm Tak, bit it’s always been a disappointment – that is until this evening 🙂 Session Data Date: 24/09/2014 Time: 19:40 – 23:31 UTSeeing: I Perfectly Stable,…
More New Toys
Well things have been a bit quiet on the observing front recently. There have been one or two clear nights, but these seem to have coincided with quite a bit of Moon. This coupled with fairly awful transparency, meant for the most part I couldn’t be arsed to open up. The other contributory factor has been that my Van Slyke Turret has been in the engineering shop for the last six weeks having a…
Observing Session: 25, July
A rather nice session plagued with various gremlins. The first Go-To after boot up, sent the mount off to some random spot in the sky. A slew to a known star and a ‘Synchronise’ solved the problem and got Go-To’s landing within the 40mm . I have no idea why the mount does this from time to time – it’s nothing serious, but it does piss me off as it happens for no apparent reason. The…
Observing Session: 23, July
Managed to stay awake enough to open up and make some progress on my Caldwell Catalogue observations. With all the confusion of the existence/location of NGC 6882, I wanted to have another go at observing NGC6885 and satisfy myself as to what is the most obvious cluster with my observing setup. Session Data Date: 23/07/2014 Time: 22:39 – 00:51 UTSeeing: I Perfectly Stable,Transparency: Clear. Air Pressure: 1017mb, Temp: 16C, Humidity 98%, Wind Speed: 2mph Caldwell 37: NGC6885, Collinder417…