Post by Al Degutis on Sept 30, 2005 11:36:25 GMT -6
The sky cover forecast said it was going to be a clear night. The satellite images contradicted that, showing what I was seeing, mostly thin clouds coming from the northwest traveling mostly eastward but occassionally dipping down on me. I planned on observing the same double stars as I did previous in this post:
astronomer.proboards23.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Observations&thread=1127407304&page=1
including a few I didn't get to while I waited for Mars to get high enough over the trees. I wanted to hone my goto-less targeting as well. I observed the double stars and compared my sketches from the other night.
Mars was visible now but the clouds had decided to keep it company as well as fill about 50% of the sky. So I decided to use my new 10x70 Fujinon binoculars (anniversary present from my loving wife) to hit the clear parts of the sky. I wish I had found the time to build a binocular mount, but had to resort to using them handheld. I observed the coat hanger and the North American Nebula (NGC 7000) and then scanned around NE of that area. About 2.5 fields away (approx 13 degress) from Deneb I found an open cluster with about a dozen bright stars and probably as many or more dimmer ones. The brighters stars formed a shape, almost like a bird in flight with tail feathers spread. Today I looked up to see what was in that area and discovered I had observed M39. Again, I wish I had a bino mount so I could have sketched it.
I'm going to try and make a bino mount today for an old, sturdy tripod I have sitting around.
I kept the telescope (8" LX200) aimed at Mars using a 2.5x TeleVue PowerMate and 22mm Orion Lanthanum SuperWide. Whenever the clouds appeared to be clearing away from Mars, I observed it only to find the clouds were really leaving. Finally around midnight local time, the clouds cleared away from Mars and I observed it for 10 minutes but the seeing was still poor, not allowing me to see any detail of the surface.
astronomer.proboards23.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Observations&thread=1127407304&page=1
including a few I didn't get to while I waited for Mars to get high enough over the trees. I wanted to hone my goto-less targeting as well. I observed the double stars and compared my sketches from the other night.
Mars was visible now but the clouds had decided to keep it company as well as fill about 50% of the sky. So I decided to use my new 10x70 Fujinon binoculars (anniversary present from my loving wife) to hit the clear parts of the sky. I wish I had found the time to build a binocular mount, but had to resort to using them handheld. I observed the coat hanger and the North American Nebula (NGC 7000) and then scanned around NE of that area. About 2.5 fields away (approx 13 degress) from Deneb I found an open cluster with about a dozen bright stars and probably as many or more dimmer ones. The brighters stars formed a shape, almost like a bird in flight with tail feathers spread. Today I looked up to see what was in that area and discovered I had observed M39. Again, I wish I had a bino mount so I could have sketched it.
I'm going to try and make a bino mount today for an old, sturdy tripod I have sitting around.
I kept the telescope (8" LX200) aimed at Mars using a 2.5x TeleVue PowerMate and 22mm Orion Lanthanum SuperWide. Whenever the clouds appeared to be clearing away from Mars, I observed it only to find the clouds were really leaving. Finally around midnight local time, the clouds cleared away from Mars and I observed it for 10 minutes but the seeing was still poor, not allowing me to see any detail of the surface.