Bill's Sky

 There were four targets fro "Turn Left At Orion"  that I wanted to try for this night. M92, M56, M39, and the double star Albireo. By the time I was aligned and ready to observe, I  only could observe M56 for a short time before it went behind the hills and trees to the west. I moved over to M39 . This is an open cluster in  Cygnus. I spent quite a bit of time looking at it, using 32mm and 25mm Plossl eyepieces. I wasn't able to positively identify it at the time. The next morning I looked it up and was in fact in the right spot. Unfortunately, I didn't think to sketch it since I wasn't sure at the time. Next I moved to M92 , a globular cluster in  Hercules. It is approximately 27,000 light years away and contains about 350,000 stars. It is what is referred to as a metal poor cluster, which means it contains few elements heavier than Hydrogen or Helium. I spent about 10 minutes just observing and trying different eyepieces to see more detail. I spent 10-15 min...

      August was pretty much a bust for observing. On many of the days the sky would start out clear and then by mid afternoon clouds would start building, and not dissipate until well after midnight. Thunderstorms and lightening with high fire danger sparked a lot of  (thankfully) smaller wildfires that were out or controlled quickly. There were two large fires south of us about 30-40 miles that kept the sky smoky for a lot of the month. An occasional thunderstorm would clear it for a day or so. The few clear nights we did get, I didn't bother setting up the telescope, but would go out just naked eye observing or maybe carry binoculars out with me. I did observe M31 with the binoculars a couple of times.  These nights helped preserve what sanity I still possess.        Tonight was different. The sky was clear, but transparency wasn't real great. NELM was probably 3-4.  I had done a small astronomy presentation the night before at the ...