Tonight was a little bit of an exercise in frustration. Starting about 20:0 0MDT I tried setting up the tripod and leveling it before attaching the mount and then the telescope. In the process, I bumped the tripod and knocked it out of level. Grrrrr! I eventually got everything set, and was able to successfully bring targets into the field of view. I am really looking forward to getting a permanent pier put together! Skyglow was pretty bright despite the Moon not being up. Seeing was fair. Transparency wasn't great, with a NELM (Naked Eye Limiting Magnitude) of about 4. The first target was M2 , a globular cluster in Aquarius. It is about 55,000 light years away and contains about 150,000 stars. I was only able to make out a couple of individual stars on the periphery by using averted vision. Second set of targets wee from the AAVSO class. Z Andromeda and AC Hercules. Hercules was just past zenith. That is a difficult angle for me to see with the red dot ...
We finally had a clear night so I could get in at least a little observing. I really wanted to get a chance to use my new sketching tools, I took the pad of black paper, white and grey Prismacolor pencils, and some regular sketching pencils to use in my journal. I was able to start observing around 21:45MDT. I used the SkyAlign alignment process. For some reason the goto function was consistently off low and left. Using the ed dot finder brought targets into the field of view (FOV). The Moon was at about 39% full and already pretty bright, high in the west. Transparency I would rate as about a 6 out of 10, and seeing was pretty steady. Since the light from the moon was washing out a lot of stars, and I am still working on my Lunar list, I decided to observe the moon first. I settled on the group of craters Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina. Theophilus is the northernmost, then Cyrillus, then Catharina...
Our library ( The Darby Community Public Library ) has a small telescope available to check out. It is part of an outreach program by the Western Montana Astronomical Society . They supply small telescopes to several libraries in western Montana. The one in our library is an Edmunds Astroscan. Telescope kit. Astroscan, 28mm and 12mm eyepieces, Rigel Quickfinder, Nightwatch and Night Sky references and star charts. Red duffel bag to carry it all. They are an older reflector telescope, with a design that originated back in 1976. The Edmund Scientific company used to be a ubiquitous supplier to technical and scientific hobbyists of all kinds, The Astroscan was designed as an entry level, easy to use telescope. The base is a ball and rests in a cradle with pads that allow it to be aimed easily, but it is balance so that it will stay put where it is aimed. There have been larger amateur built telescopes that use essentially this same type mount. It is a form of...
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