24 September 2024

Tonight was clear enough that I set up my telescope. Set up at 21:00 MDT, and aligned using Altair and Polaris. GoTo was still consistently off to the left in the east part of the sky, but was able to use the RDF to get on target. I am obviously missing something in set up. The most obvious suspects are date and time entry. 

Transparency isn't real great and the sky was pretty bright, so I decided to just try some easy observing to relax.  I hadn't done any planet observing in a while, and Saturn was up. I started with the 25mm eyepiece and progressed to the 8mm. The rings are almost edge on, just a little tilt to them. Seeing wasn't real steady, but there were moments when it steadied. I could make out a very thin dark space between the rings and the planet on either side of the planetary disk, And could easily make out the rings in front of the planet. The north atmospheric band was occasionally faintly visible. There was no real discernible color. The planet appeared white and the band was slightly grey.  I need to try out some different filters to see if it helps.

Next target was Neptune. I have observed it before, but wanted to try again. It was fairly low in the south, which didn't help the transparency or seeing. The bright sky was also a hindrance. I used the 25mm eyepiece.  I wasn't able to make out a disk or any color, so am not sure I had correctly located it. 


 

Still wanting to look at brighter objects because of the sky condition. I decided to go for M33, the Triangulum Galaxy.The galaxy itself was very faint, but the three stars in the center that give M33 its name were visible using averted vision.

This galaxy is a member of the Milky Way's Local Group and is about three million light years away. It has a total mass of about 10 billion suns According to the information from "Turn Left At Orion", one of the reasons it is so difficult to pick out is that despite being a classic spiral galaxy, it doesn't have the typical bright core. It is only about half a million light years away than the Andromeda Galaxy, M31. it is also thought to be bound to it by gravity. 


 

I was starting to get some dew on the corrector plate, despite having the dew shield on, so packed it up.

 I have finished the AAVSO course "Developing a Visual Observing Program". It was really helpful, and I have a set of targets to work on visually. Now I need the weather to cooperate!

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