Crater Thaetetus The sky was mostly clear, but very bright and transparency was low. The Moon was at about 60% full waxing. Bright enough to cast visible shadows. There was also a lot of moisture in the air. The lights on the side of the truss company, about 1/2 mile away, had halos around them. Luckily no dew formed while I was out. Seeing was probably Antoniadi 3, possibly 3.5. I wasn't able to push magnification past 156x without turning Jupiter into a fuzzball of light. I was hoping it was better because I wanted to check collimation after the 'scope fell last time I was out. With the sky so bright, I made Jupiter my initial target. I was only able to resolve the North and South Equatorial Bands. Seeing was unsteady enough that at times they disappeared. The Galilean moons were easily visible. I had read that using the Moon filter on Jupiter can sometimes help bring out more detail, so I gave that a try. The only effect for me was a dimmer view. I spent quite a wh...
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 ...
This was my first opportunity to get out and observe for a month. Weather has not been very cooperative! The sky started out with some high, thin clouds. It seems like there was a lot of haze/humidity in the air, lights in the area showing definite halos. For some reason there wasn't any dew yet though. I started setting up at dusk, and made my first observation about 21:00 MDT. I did a solar system alignment using Jupiter, then observed that using 17mm Plossl (119.5x) and 13mm Plossl (156.3x) eyepieces.Seeing was much better than last time out, but at 156x it was hard to maintain focus. I would estimate seeing as Antoniadi 3. The North and South Equatorial Bands were easily visible as distinct very light brownish bands. There were occasional hints of the South polar Band. Since seeing was decent, I wanted to make another try at Mars. It is rapidly diminishing after opposition, which was not a real great one. Again used the 17 and 13 mm eyepieces. the view through the 17mm w...
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