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...

       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 ...

      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 ...