With the wind being 5 mph over my 10mph limit – the observatory roof could go airborne over this – and a clear Moonless night, it seemed a shame to miss out on some observing. Having just put the TMB back on the mount and collimated it to the big scope, I decided to take my fairly new 10×60 finder scope off the Losmandy and mount it on the Alt/Az Sabre mount. While a…
Observing Session: 21, April
This evenings session was Galaxies all the way. The nights are now starting to warm up a little and it’s nice to observe wearing just two fleeces now 🙂 Leaving behind the fleece lined trousers and boots as well as the outer jacket and wooly hat, means Winter is now well and truly behind us. I’m hoping I can cram in a a load more observing sessions before that June/July period where it never really get…
Observing Session: 14, April
Another long spell without cloud. Well that’s not exactly true, as there have been a few clear nights in batches. One forecasted and gave cloudless skies, but with a full moon and lots of high thin stuff, i didn’t even bother to venture out. The other a few weeks later didn’t look to bad, but with lots of early morning starts, I’ve not been able to stay awake long enough to do anything useful….
Observing Session: 15, February
I’m not sure how long ago I was up for an observing session before sunrise, but I had another this morning. Squinting through the bedroom window stars were seen so I resisted the urge to roll over and go back to sleep and I hauled myself out of my pit. Session Data Date: 15/02/2015 Time: 04:32 – 06:17 UTSeeing: III Somewhat Stable, Transparency: IV Somewhat Clear, Temp:2.2c, Air Pressure: 989mb, Humidity: 91%, Dew Point: 2.2c, Wind Speed: 5mph, SQM: 19.3 mags/arcsecond, NELM: 5.2mag C4, NGC7025 In…
Observing Session: 17, January
With an aborted attempt to open up and observe comet Lovejoy a few days earlier – a rain shower stopped play just as I was about to slew to it – found me rushing home from club night with clear skies and no Moon. With everything fired up, the lack of any COM port meant that I had to drive the scope manually. After syncing and entering co-ordinates manually, I had it sitting in…
Observing Session: 28, December
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….