Activity

I see Northern light even from my backyard, no color though. It could be stronger about midnight see https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/images/aurora-forecast-northern-hemisphere.jpg

It looks like it just might be nice on Friday.  Is Eagle Bluff available?  Anyone interested in a Messier Marathon?  There will be a bit of moon out there.  It’ll probably hide some of the early western objects.

See attached PDF for February 8th, 2022 meeting minutes.

Thank you Jim! Must admit I am taken with the quality of this refractor. I’ve also “revived my old Canon T5 Rebel camera and the eyepiece projection components that had been gathering dust. The spring (looking ahead of course) night sky is great for seeing the most first magnitude stars. Wanting to test that AT80ED telescope further I have…[Read more]

great image, thanks for posting it! as soon as you were talking about the telescope
at the meeting i wondered how Orion nebula would look with it 😉

Whoops. I have downsized the image below.

Another clear evening and just had to go out with the AT80ED to observe and photograph. Below is a 32 second view of M42 using the recovered refractor and Orion 6.3 MegaPixel camera.

I forgot to mention that you do not need a large telescope to participate. The speaker said that some of the participants use telescopes as small and 3.5″

nice Bob!

Thanks Josef! Finally, the image below, (while not a true masking effect), shows how combining a previous evening’s longer exposure of M 42 with a shorter exposure highlighting the trapezium allows some detail to be seen in the bright center of M 42 and the “bat wing” appearance of the nebula.

Great Trapezium area exposures animation! Basically we can see nebula isophots on each grooving exposure. Thanks for sharing.

Absolutely!
Doing some observing with that small refractor donated to the club last meeting (AT80ED, 3.1 inch F7). After Jay and I cleaned it up I obtained an Orion motorized mount from Randy and got out the last 2 nights to observe and image with the scope and my Orion 6.3 Mpixel camera.
The file below is an animated gif of the Trapezium area of…[Read more]

Comet 96P Machholz is back in the SOHO C3 sky swinging around the sun and at perihelium today (see the SOHO gif movie below.  The last visit I believe was around Oct. 29, 2017.

P.S.  The mouse is photoshopped!  A dead mouse was NOT found!

Bob

Hello Randy

Minutes reviewed; thanks.  (BTW the last name is spelled Fealey).  Jay and I have done an initial cleaning of the AT80ED refractor.  I have a brief Power Point presentation on our efforts I will send it to you either here as an attachment or via your email.  Haven’t had it mounted for a star diffraction test but have viewed some ter…[Read more]

that’s an awesome image!