I’m quite gobsmacked at the number of clear nights I’ve had this month. At least the four night gap since the last session has enabled me to catch up on some sleep 🙂 Despite a little bit of Moon, tonight’s sky was pretty much perfect. I’ve just noticed the humidity was down to 72%, a figure I’ve not seen since earlier in the year in April. Session Stats Date: 30/09/2015 Time: 19:54 – 22:33 UTSeeing: I…
Lunar Eclipse: 28, September
I’ve finally managed to get round to processing all of the images that I took of the Lunar Eclipse last Monday. This is the second full eclipse that I’ve seen, but the first of which I intended to take lots of images. Nothing much to say about these, but I decided to use my Nikon D80 fitted to the TMB80. The big RC would have been nice, but with the D80’s chip, I would…
Observing Session: 26, September
Bloody typical. More clear skies than I know what to do with, and what do we now have now – A full on Moon! Having decided that anything galactic or nebulous was going to be a waste of time, I set Skytools 3 the task of finding me some open clusters up near the Zenith that would be suitable for observation. As my Collinder observing programme has been quiet of late, I set the…
A New Toy: 18, September
…..and yet another clear night in September. At this rate I’m going to be knackered. I’ve also had so many clear nights since this session that I’m way behind on writing up all the observing logs that are now accumulating. I think I can say that September has been my most productive month EVER.The main reason for opening up was to try a newly acquired toy for the DBO2 I’ve been getting a little fed…
Observing Session: 9, September
Three observing sessions in under a week – it’s been a while since I had one of those.The wind was a little too high to safely open up the DBO, so I dragged the Baby RC out for some star hopping. I’m so glad I don’t have a Cassegrain design any more, as within 15mins, dew was dripping off the scope. A corrector plate would have dewed up almost immediately! Dealing with dew requires yet…
Observing Session: 6, September
Wow. two clear nights in a row. Transparency not too hot with the murk climbing up to about 20 degrees from the horizon. Still had trouble seeing C17, but at least a small proportion of C18 revealed itself. Session Stats Date: 06/09/2015 Time: 20:49 – 22:49 UTSeeing: II Mostly Stable,Transparency: III Mostly Clear, Temp:10.0c, Pressure: 1025mb, Humidity: 84%, Dew Point: 7.4 , Wind: 2mph, SQM: 18.5 mags/arcsecond, NELM: 5.3mag NCG891, C23 Not Seen. I checked carefully that I had identified the star field. NCG1036, M34…