Bill's Sky

 Went out at about 22:00MDT. This was just a relaxing night of viewing. I didn't feel like setting up a telescope, and wanted to spend some time with the binoculars. These are the 12x50 Nikon. NELM is just a little better than 4. I can make out all 7stars in the Little Dipper, but the 4.4 magnitude and 4.5 magnitude stars are just barely visible. Sky is pretty bright. The Milky Way runs NE-SW. I set up the zero g chair facing east. The Pleiades are naked eye visible as a hazy area about 20 degrees above the horizon, which puts them just under 10 degrees above the Sapphires. The stars appear almost jewel like. I count nine bright ones and several lesser ones.  From there I moved to M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. It is just visible to the naked eye. In the binoculars I can see a bright core. The rest is fainter, fading out more as you move outward. It takes up over half of the 5.5 degree FOV. Cassiopeia is about 75-80 degrees above the NE horizon. About halfway between Cassiopeia an...

  The night is mostly clear with a few passing high clouds. Transparency otherwise is probably about a 4/5. Seeing is average, about Antoniadi 3.5 when Saturn was about  30 degrees above the horizon, improving to A3 as it rose higher. Moon is 96% waning, NELM about 3.5. I could only really make out Polaris, Kochab, and Pherkad in the little dipper, mostly due to sky glow. This is the first time I've actually taken time to set the Orion up properly.I have replaced the screws for the accessory tray. Like most telescope tripods, the tray serves as a spreader and brace for the legs. Having this in correctly helped with shakiness. I also tightened up the bolts holding the legs to the base of the mount. They were loose enough that the joint would flex when moving the telescope. The focuser is very stiff and needs to be reworked. The slow motion controls work well but OTA started bumping the azimuth knob at certain elevations. Initially the view wasn't much better than I had last yea...