26 September 2024

 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 finder, so I shifted over to Z AND. I spent quite a while scanning that area, but was unable to positively identify the correct star field. At one point I thought I had the right location, but transparency was bad enough I couldn't identify Z AND. This points out the need to do more detailed planning to be sure I am at least in the right location.

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

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