Bill's Sky

  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...

    The sky cleared off nicely tonight. NELM is about 4-5. I can just make out all seven stars of the little dipper. The  There does appear to be some particulates or a little moisture in the air. The skyglow is pretty bright, with bright light domes from Hamilton and Darby. I set up about 22:45MDT and did a SkyAlign using Vega, Polaris, and Spica.    My first target was M53 , a globular cluster in the constellation Coma Berenices . Using the 25mm Plossl eyepiece (81x) it appears as just a small fuzzy ball. Not able to make out any individual stars. There is a small triangular asterism just below and right of the custer in the eyepiece. Adding the 2x barlow gives 162x and I can occasionally make out some indiviual stars on the clusters periphery using averted vision. At this magnification the core is fairly bright and fades out to the edge. One of the things that makes M53 interesting is that it is one of the furtest known globular clusters.NASA shows it as 59,7...

     I am trying to take advantage of as many clear nights this year as I can. That doesn't always mean they are the best for observing, but just getting out and trying to learn and see more is very gratifying in itself. 2 May 2026  2 May was a day past the full Moon. I was curious about how bright it actually made the sky so I checked out the Starry Sky kit from the library to use the SQM (Sky Quality Meter). These are made by Unihedron and measure the sky in magnitude/arcsecond. It is an objective measurement as opposed to the subjective Bortle Scale that is widely used by amateur astronomers. The SQM uses the same magnitude scale that is used for stars. Therefore, the higher the number, the less bright the sky background is. The brighter the background sky glow, the lower the number. At 22:15 MDT the Moon was  about 40 degrees above the horizon. Standing in a spot shaded from moonlight by a tree, I got an average reading of  19.17 with the ...