10 September 2026, Supernova 2026aaiv

 


 The sky is mostly clear but very bright tonight. NELM is about 4. I can only make out Polaris and the two brightest stars of the cup, Kochab and Pherkad. There seems to be a lot of moisture in the air so transparency is way down from the other night.

I took the 8SE out and remounted it on the pier. I had some trouble leveling the mount, but the goto and tracking seemed to work well. About 21:53MDT I finished and did a SkyAlign using Polaris, Alpheratz, and Nunki. I tested the alignment by going to M8, M20, and M31.

I then went to NGC7331 (also known as Caldwell 30). The goto put it in the center of the FOV for the 32mm Plossl eyepiece. I then tried the 17mm and 13mm eyepieces. The overall view was dim. The galaxy itself appears as a slightly oval fuzzy. In the 32mm I could just make out two brighter spots in the galaxy. Going to 17mm and then 13mm confirmed them. Using averted vision really helped make them more visible. There weren't many stars visible in the surrounding FOV. Looking at astrophotography of the galaxy with the supernova, it may actually be the bright star closer to the core.

At 22:35MDT I started observing Saturn. It was about 20 degrees above the horizon, so just under 10 degrees above the mountains. Used 25mm, 17mm, 13mm, and 10mm eyepieces. Seeing was probably Antoniadi III in the 10mm. Saturn was a bright whitish ball and the rings appeared as narrow "ears" on either side. The image was boiling some, making it difficult to focus.

Clouds started moving in so I shut down 

 


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