Bill's Sky

  Just stepped outside to see how the sky looked, and  Orion was  in the southwest. Got out the binoculars instead of messing with the telescope. I was pretty amazed at how well this showed up in the 12x50 binoculars. Seeing was pretty steady, and transparency just so-so. There were also scattered clouds around. M42, the Orion Nebula, is one of the most photographed objects, by both amateurs and professionals. The Horsehead Nebula that has been shown a lot since Hubble Space Telescope imaged it is actually part of this complex Original sketch was made on white paper in the sketchbook I am using for a journal/log book. I then take a picture of it with  my phone camera and email that to myself. I download and save the image in a folder for astronomy sketches. The file names typically include the object and date. Those downloaded images are then inverted using graphics software. With this new computer, I have been using GIMP to perform the inversion.

      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 ...