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...

   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 surroundi...

 The sky started out tonight with about 40% cloud cover but was completely clear by 21:30 MDT. This was one of the better nights I've seen in a long time. Some showers have cleared a lot of the smoke. Transparency was good and seeing seemed very good, especially at zenith. The Teapot of Sagittarius was easily visible low in the south. I was pleasantly surprised. Between the smoke and sky glow I had not expected to be able to see it again before it disappeared for the season. NELM was probably approaching 6. After my eyes were dark adapted, all seven stars in the Little Dipper were visible. Star clouds and dark lanes in the Milky Way were clearly visible. Since I got a late start after dark, I didn't bother with setting up a telescope, just used the binoculars. These are a pair of Nikon 12x50 Action binoculars with a 5.5 degree FOV. I also set up the zero-g recliner so I could be steady ( and comfortable). I started by looking at Sagittarius since it.s low in the south and will...

Air quality today isn't very good. Wildfire smoke has AirNow.gov giving us a particulate reading of 164, which is in the unhealthy range.  Moonrise was officially 20:32:46 and the eclipse started about 20:33. The Moon cleared the Sapphires about 20 minutes later, so there was already a small bite out of the lower left side when it became visible. There were some low clouds in that direction, so at first I thought what I was seeing was just a section obscured by clouds. It took me a few minutes to realize it was actually the start of the eclipse I was seeing. At 20:55 I snapped a picture with my phone. It isn't great, and the image is brighter than it appeared to my eye. The smoke made it the illuminated portion of the Moon look almost like a blood Moon. The image is zoomed in to get a better look at the Moon.    The Moon was in and out of a couple of bands of clouds before clearing. I got out the DSLR, a Canon EOS Rebel T7. After trying to steady it by hand, I broke out ...

       Between wildfires in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, there has been pretty poor transparency. Add in a few smaller fires in the valley, and the skies have been pretty bad. August also seems to be a month where days start off clear but cumulus and thunderstorms start building in the afternoon, leading to cloudy evenings that often don't clear until the wee hours of the morning. Unfortunately most of the thunderstorms result in lightning starting fires but not enough moisture to really help.      The last couple of days have been an exception. Still some lightning but for a change had enough rain to make a significant difference. It rained most of the last couple of days and cleared most of the smoke out. I went outside around 23:00 MDT to see if it was clearing at all. It was mostly clear! I had brought the 12x50 binoculars out just in case, but no plan. I just scanned around enjoying the views.      Vega and Deneb were ...

Our library has a Starry Sky kit  supplied through the Montana Learning Center. It contains a Unihedron Sky Quality Monitor (SQM) , a small Planisphere, a small red flashlight, and some documentation Didn't set up a telescope tonight, but took the SQM from the libraries Starry Sky kit out to measure the skies brightness. The observatory walls are up, so I took readings from in there. The walls are 5' tall, so for the first readings I held the SQM just low enough in the by the pier to be sure no outside light. Three consecutive readings at zenith were 21.36, 21.37, and 21.35, for an average of 21.35 mpas. I then did three readings pointed at zenith from the top of the telescope, which is about 6” higher than the wall. These readings were 21.33, 21.27. and 21.28 for an average of 21.29 mpas. I pointed it about 20 º above the north horizon and it read 21.14 mpas. Pointed about the same above the south horizon it was 20.06 mpas. Our small town is 1 mile south of us, and there is...

        The sky is still fairly bright tonight. There is also a slight haze noticeable around lights and in the skyglow from town. I went out to set up about 23:00 MDT, and caught a line of noctilucent cloud to the northwest. The Milky Way is visible. I hesitated to post this image un-cropped because it gives an idea of how bad my handwriting is.          Used SkyAlign again, with Caph , Altair , and Antares for alignment stars. First target at 23:34 is M4 . This is one of the closest globular clusters to Earth, about 7,200 light years away. Started with the 25mm Plossl eyepiece, then went to 17mm. M4 is only about   20 ° above the southern horizon. Since that is where town is, the surrounding sky is very bright. I can make out a few individual stars in the periphery. There is a bright chain of stars through the center. This is one of the features I had read about and was hoping to see.     Next target at 23:40 was the op...

  This was just a short observing night with only one target, just because it seemed interesting, and was. I didn't make any notes at the 'scope except for the sketch. NGC 6826 is called the blinking eye nebula because the outer shell seems to disappear and reappear depending on the angle of your eye.  Here's an Astronomy Magazine article on the effect.       

       Went out and set up at about 23:05. Did the Skyalign using Deneb, Altair. and Antares. While setting up I could see distant clouds to the SE with lightning flashes in them. Temperature is about 66F.  I have been making short observing lists for each night, mostly based on the targets in "Turn Left At Orion" (TLAO). I am adding an occasional target from other sources that seem interesting. Another factor is that many of the targets are low enough in the southern sky that there is a limited window from my latitude (46 deg north). For example, the "Teapot" in Sagittarius barely gets over 20 degrees above the southern horizon.  My primary targets for the night  were double stars and globular clusters because of the short night and how bright the sky is. It washes out most nebula and even a lot of galaxies.       My first targets tonight were Rasalgethi (Alpha Herculis) and Rasalhague (Alpha Ophiucus) ,  two double stars. ...

      I have a "new" 90mm achromatic refractor telescope. It's an Orion Explorer 90AZ. Anne  found it advertised on FB Marketplace in a town about two hours away. The seller had recently obtained it from a friend and didn't use it. I did some research and offered $100 for it, that they accepted. The telescope is a 90mm aperture, 910mm focal length (F10) achromat that has an alt-az mount with slow motion controls. The finder is a 6x26 straight through correct image finder with crosshairs. It came with the Orion padded carry bag for the OTA and tripod, an Orion accessory case, a 45deg correct image prism, a 90deg prism, 10mm and 25mm Orion Sirius Plossl eyepieces, a 2x Barlow, a moon filter, and the assembly tools that came with it originally. The manual and original purchase paperwork were in the padded bag with the OTA. The Orion catalog with the 'scope marked by the original purchaser was there also. The telescope and mount were purchased in December of 2006. The...

   Just a quick note: I am way behind on posting my observations. that means these are posted way after the observation and notes were made in my journal! Venus and Jupiter are getting low in the western sky, and supposedly visible even in daylight. I thought I might be able to catch a quick look before they went behind the trees, so at about 19:00MDT I took the 12x50 binoculars out for a quick look, but was unable to see either one. However, the Moon was about 22% full. Went back out at about 20:45MDT. I did a solar system alignment on the Moon and put the DSLR on the piggyback mount for the 8SE to get a few pictures. The camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T7, using a 75-300mm lens. The first image is at 75mm, just to get a good general idea of the sky. There were some high thin clouds. The second image is with the 300mm zoomed in. Unfortunately, I didn't think to write down all the info on the settings. Just got too excited I guess.      Looking at the Moon in daylig...

    The sky cleared off nicely tonight. NELM is about 4-5. I can just make out all seven stars of the little dipper. The  There does appear to be some particulates or a little moisture in the air. The skyglow is pretty bright, with bright light domes from Hamilton and Darby. I set up about 22:45MDT and did a SkyAlign using Vega, Polaris, and Spica.    My first target was M53 , a globular cluster in the constellation Coma Berenices . Using the 25mm Plossl eyepiece (81x) it appears as just a small fuzzy ball. Not able to make out any individual stars. There is a small triangular asterism just below and right of the custer in the eyepiece. Adding the 2x barlow gives 162x and I can occasionally make out some indiviual stars on the clusters periphery using averted vision. At this magnification the core is fairly bright and fades out to the edge. One of the things that makes M53 interesting is that it is one of the furtest known globular clusters.NASA shows it as 59,7...

     I am trying to take advantage of as many clear nights this year as I can. That doesn't always mean they are the best for observing, but just getting out and trying to learn and see more is very gratifying in itself. 2 May 2026  2 May was a day past the full Moon. I was curious about how bright it actually made the sky so I checked out the Starry Sky kit from the library to use the SQM (Sky Quality Meter). These are made by Unihedron and measure the sky in magnitude/arcsecond. It is an objective measurement as opposed to the subjective Bortle Scale that is widely used by amateur astronomers. The SQM uses the same magnitude scale that is used for stars. Therefore, the higher the number, the less bright the sky background is. The brighter the background sky glow, the lower the number. At 22:15 MDT the Moon was  about 40 degrees above the horizon. Standing in a spot shaded from moonlight by a tree, I got an average reading of  19.17 with the ...

The full Moon is tomorrow, tonights is at 98% full. I haven't bothered to look at it because this full there is low contrast with no shadows. Most features are harder to make out. Common wisdom is that there really isn't much to see like this. However, I had read that sometimes when the surface is this bright you can see hints of the faint mineral colors. Professional Astronomers use filters and processing images to bring out these faint colors.             " Even if the moon really were made of green cheese it probably wouldn’t look this bizarre. Still, this mosaic of 53 images was recorded by the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft as it passed near our own large natural satellite in 1992. The pictures were recorded through three spectral filters and combined in an exaggerated false-color scheme to explore the composition of the lunar surface as changes in mineral content produce subtle color differences in reflected light. Image credit: NASA/JPL "...

  Got set up about 22:15 MDT. IJust did a SkyAlign using three bright stars. First was Arcturus, but I forgot to note the other two. That's something I need to be sure to do from now on. NELM was about 3.5-4. Stars not twinkling very much st zenith, but twinling more as you looked lower. Transparency was about 3/5 and got worse as the night progressed. I initially thought it was possibly moisture in the air, but humidity was only about 34% and dew neve formed on any surfaces. It turned out to be smoke haze. By 08:00 the next morning the smoke in the valley was thick enough to smell and there was a haze over everything. The Moon was about 17% waxing. I wanted to observe it before it went behind the trees to  the west so it was my first target. I started out using the 25mm Plossl eyepiece (81x), and worked north along the terminator from the south edge. After getting a good overall view I went to Mare Crisium. While scanning around it a detail I hadn't noticed before caught my e...