Bill's Sky

                                                              31 March , 2024 (Easter) The night of 31 March started out partly cloudy, but started clearing up. I got set up and aligned using the 2-star alignment. I checked it by going to the Pleiades, and it was centered nicely. The sky was also pretty bright, even though the moon wasn't up yet. Seeing was good, and the transparency seemed about medium. I suspect there was more moisture in the air or smoke particles form small burns to account for the bright sky. The small light dome over town appeared somewhat hazy. In addition to the lights at the truss company, there was also one of the light standards at the rodeo arena or high school on. I suspect this light  interference will continue or get worse, since they are constructing a restaurant nea...

      My friend Doug had read about Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks and asked if I could see it. I was doubtful since I had read it is fairly low in the west. Our hill blocks off up to 30degrees above the horizon. Using the Sky Tonight app on my phone, I was able to see where it would be in the sky. By backing up almost to our pump house, i could catch it just above the trees with my 12x50 binoculars. I was able to see a small fuzzy ball with a very faint green tint. No tail was visible. The time was about 20:30 MDT. just a few minutes later it went behind the trees. Given it's appearance, it is easy to understand why Messier wanted to make his list of DSOs (Deep Sky Objects). It would be very easy to confuse them at first observation. If you didn't already know what it was, it would take several nights tracking it to verify that it wasn't a comet.        My rough plan for the night was to work on Moon targets from the observing list, since it was bright e...

       We finally had a clear night so I could get in at least a little observing. I really wanted to get a chance to use my new sketching tools, I took the pad of black paper, white and grey Prismacolor pencils, and some regular sketching pencils to use in my journal.     I was able to start observing around 21:45MDT. I used the SkyAlign alignment process. For some reason the goto function was consistently off low and left. Using the ed dot finder brought targets into the field of view (FOV).          The Moon was at about 39% full and already pretty bright, high in the west. Transparency I would rate as about a 6 out of 10, and seeing was pretty steady. Since the light from the moon was washing out a lot of stars, and I am still working on my Lunar list, I decided to observe the moon first. I settled on the group of craters Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina. Theophilus is the northernmost, then Cyrillus, then Catharina...

Moon rise over the Sapphire Mountains, 18:16 MST, 26 Jan 2024   Time flies. I hadn't realized how long it had been since I posted last. Hopefully I will not have as long a lapse again! The image above was a quick snap taken with my Samsung A42 5G, just using default settings. We had just returned from running errands and picking up some groceries. I looked over, and the Moon was illuminating that lower layer of clouds from behind. I wanted to get a picture of that, but wasn't quick enough. I did try to be a little "artistic" by using the pine tree in front of our house to frame the shot. If I was being really artistic I would crop the image so that lens reflection lower and was cut out. I was thinking about getting the telescope out, since the temperature was still slightly above freezing, but the sky was 90% clouded over in another thirty minutes. I haven't done any observing since my last entry. The primary reason has been weather. Not many clear nights, and col...

  No observing so far since the last entry, but some notes on process. I have been reading a lot of information in the Cloudy Nights sketching forum and Stargazers Lounge sketching forum . They both have links to some very good resources. One of the resources  mentioned a lot is the book pictured above. I was lucky enough to be gifted that book, along with a set of good drawing pencils, some white graphite pencils, and a pad of black sketching paper. Based on the infomation in the book, I added to that kit by picking up a small set of three different sized blending stumps, a gum eraser, a pink pearl eraser, a Prismacolor white pastel pencil, and a sandpaper stick pencil sharpener. We already have some small hand held sharpeners, and I thought I still had an eraser shield.  Turns out I don't anymore, so I will pick one up next time I get to the office supply store.  In playing around with the black pad and the graphite pencils, I had some uneven results. The graphite...

 I haven't been able to get out and observe since my last "learning experience a couple of weeks ago, but I did some reading and playing around with sketches. There are many people who do their sketches using chalk or white pencil on black paper, and do a fantastic job. They turn out professional looking images that are mind boggling. Just take a look at some of the Sketch of the Month winners on Cloudy Nights and those just posted in the Cloudy Nights Sketching Forum or the Stargazers Lounge Sketching Forum .  You will also find people doing as I do, using pencil on white paper at the eyepiece. One thing I found out is that many sketchers will take a picture of their pencil sketch, then use a program such as Windows Paint to simply invert the colors. This gives the black background with the object or stars in white. My sketches are a long way from being in the same ballpark even, but I applied this step to the ones I have done, and here are the results.They come out looking...

      This was my first chance to get out and observe since October 19. Before going out, I used TLAO and Stellarium to make a tentative observing list. Proposed targets were M30, which is a globular cluster; M52, an open cluster; M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. There were a few clouds widely scattered, but mostly clear sky. Transparency wasn't great, but most of the sky was workable.  Jupiter was clearly visible when I started setting up, just after sunset. By the time I was all set up Capella and a few other stars were visible. I did an All Sky Align using Capella, Saturn, and Jupiter. This is the first time I have tried mixing planets with a star for alignment and it seemed to work well. I slewed to M30 using the goto function. It was easily in my FOV, but was very faint. I slewed back to Capella, set a cover over most of the scope and a plastic cover over the table with my eyepiece case to protect from dew, and went in for dinner. I left the scope tracking Capel...