Bill's Sky

Our library has a Starry Sky kit  supplied through the Montana Learning Center. It contains a Unihedron Sky Quality Monitor (SQM) , a small Planisphere, a small red flashlight, and some documentation Didn't set up a telescope tonight, but took the SQM from the libraries Starry Sky kit out to measure the skies brightness. The observatory walls are up, so I took readings from in there. The walls are 5' tall, so for the first readings I held the SQM just low enough in the by the pier to be sure no outside light. Three consecutive readings at zenith were 21.36, 21.37, and 21.35, for an average of 21.35 mpas. I then did three readings pointed at zenith from the top of the telescope, which is about 6” higher than the wall. These readings were 21.33, 21.27. and 21.28 for an average of 21.29 mpas. I pointed it about 20 º above the north horizon and it read 21.14 mpas. Pointed about the same above the south horizon it was 20.06 mpas. Our small town is 1 mile south of us, and there is...

        The sky is still fairly bright tonight. There is also a slight haze noticeable around lights and in the skyglow from town. I went out to set up about 23:00 MDT, and caught a line of noctilucent cloud to the northwest. The Milky Way is visible. I hesitated to post this image un-cropped because it gives an idea of how bad my handwriting is.          Used SkyAlign again, with Caph , Altair , and Antares for alignment stars. First target at 23:34 is M4 . This is one of the closest globular clusters to Earth, about 7,200 light years away. Started with the 25mm Plossl eyepiece, then went to 17mm. M4 is only about   20 ° above the southern horizon. Since that is where town is, the surrounding sky is very bright. I can make out a few individual stars in the periphery. There is a bright chain of stars through the center. This is one of the features I had read about and was hoping to see.     Next target at 23:40 was the op...

  This was just a short observing night with only one target, just because it seemed interesting, and was. I didn't make any notes at the 'scope except for the sketch. NGC 6826 is called the blinking eye nebula because the outer shell seems to disappear and reappear depending on the angle of your eye.  Here's an Astronomy Magazine article on the effect.       

       Went out and set up at about 23:05. Did the Skyalign using Deneb, Altair. and Antares. While setting up I could see distant clouds to the SE with lightning flashes in them. Temperature is about 66F.  I have been making short observing lists for each night, mostly based on the targets in "Turn Left At Orion" (TLAO). I am adding an occasional target from other sources that seem interesting. Another factor is that many of the targets are low enough in the southern sky that there is a limited window from my latitude (46 deg north). For example, the "Teapot" in Sagittarius barely gets over 20 degrees above the southern horizon.  My primary targets for the night  were double stars and globular clusters because of the short night and how bright the sky is. It washes out most nebula and even a lot of galaxies.       My first targets tonight were Rasalgethi (Alpha Herculis) and Rasalhague (Alpha Ophiucus) ,  two double stars. ...

      I have a "new" 90mm achromatic refractor telescope. It's an Orion Explorer 90AZ. Anne  found it advertised on FB Marketplace in a town about two hours away. The seller had recently obtained it from a friend and didn't use it. I did some research and offered $100 for it, that they accepted. The telescope is a 90mm aperture, 910mm focal length (F10) achromat that has an alt-az mount with slow motion controls. The finder is a 6x26 straight through correct image finder with crosshairs. It came with the Orion padded carry bag for the OTA and tripod, an Orion accessory case, a 45deg correct image prism, a 90deg prism, 10mm and 25mm Orion Sirius Plossl eyepieces, a 2x Barlow, a moon filter, and the assembly tools that came with it originally. The manual and original purchase paperwork were in the padded bag with the OTA. The Orion catalog with the 'scope marked by the original purchaser was there also. The telescope and mount were purchased in December of 2006. The...

   Just a quick note: I am way behind on posting my observations. that means these are posted way after the observation and notes were made in my journal! Venus and Jupiter are getting low in the western sky, and supposedly visible even in daylight. I thought I might be able to catch a quick look before they went behind the trees, so at about 19:00MDT I took the 12x50 binoculars out for a quick look, but was unable to see either one. However, the Moon was about 22% full. Went back out at about 20:45MDT. I did a solar system alignment on the Moon and put the DSLR on the piggyback mount for the 8SE to get a few pictures. The camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T7, using a 75-300mm lens. The first image is at 75mm, just to get a good general idea of the sky. There were some high thin clouds. The second image is with the 300mm zoomed in. Unfortunately, I didn't think to write down all the info on the settings. Just got too excited I guess.      Looking at the Moon in daylig...