Bill's Sky

  I set up about 20:00 MST, I did a "Skyalign" using Mizar and Sirius for the first two stars, and then just a random star in between them for the third star. NELM is about 3-4 and transparency not great. The only star I could see in the Little Dipper was Polaris .  The first target was M1,The Crab Nebula ,  but I couldn't see it so shifted to M42, the Great Orion Nebula.   M43 , it's smaller companion was also in the field of view. Using the 25mm Plossl eyepiece the four stars at the heart of M42 were visible. The bright core of M43 was also visible. The dark lane to the core of M42 was very well defined. I sketched it using HB and 4B pencils and a smudge stick in my sketchbook/log.  Next target was M35  and I switched to the 32mm Plossl. This is an open star cluster about 2,800 light years away in the constellation Gemini. It consists of several hundred stars scattered over an area about equal to a full moon.I have tended to shy away from open clusters ...

  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.