fealeybob14

Looks like you are prepared for the spectacle Duane!  Looking at magnitude data of T CrB from AAVSO today, shows an unusual fluctuation in brightness https://apps.aavso.org/webobs/results/?star=000-BBW-825&num_results=200

Not sure of the meaning of this, but wouldn’t it be great if tonight was the night and we were observing at Eagle Bluff!

Watson outreach summary:  Good turnout perhaps 6-7 members and 12-15 visitors.  Sky was clear but hey it’s the middle of Rochester, so the moon, bright stars, globulars and bright nebula were seen.  Possible new member Bob (a good name) with an awesome 5 inch refractor and hefty mount was there and Josef and Jeff got us all a view of Mercury.  Joh…[Read more]

And while in the neighborhood an image of the Lagoon Nebula is welcome. The one below taken as the Trifid one above except 100 frames were stacked.

Glad you nicely captured the Rho Oph area Rob. Looking forward to your work too Duane. While recording with the dark sky meter on 7/9, I had my AT80ED refractor and ZWO ASI 183MC camera and got a pic of the Trifid nebula (M20). Photo below was a live stack of 165 5 sec frames. No filters or guiding; but did dark frame subtraction of camera…[Read more]

Given a clear sky tonight I plan to be at Root River Park to take dark sky readings with and without the Unihedron housing window in place.  This is necessary to confirm the estimated 0.15 offset to the reading due to the housing glass window.

The above link provides equations to convert magnitude per square second (MPSAS) to naked eye limiting magnitude (NELM) and visa versa. Simply enter the meter reading and click on the ‘calculate’ box. I’ll show this at our meeting Tuesday, 6/9.

Here is information regarding the Unihedron Sky Quality Meter readings and correlation to naked eye visual magnitudes. The information is found on page 15 of the instruction manual and this is the link: http://www.unihedron.com/projects/darksky/NELM2BCalc.html

Thanks Josef! (BTW, the park is in Olmsted County!)

Good night at Root River Park 6-29-2024. Excellent turnout of members and visitors and great member/visitor discussions were heard.
I used the Unihedron Sky Quality Meter to record sky darkness. An annotated plot of the data is attached. Max darkness 20.91 mag/arc-sec2.

Totally agree with you Macastronome!  I was over at Keller Wildlife Management Area taking dark sky readings, observing and photographing some galaxies!  Let’s share at our meeting tonight!

You and Josef have prophesized correctly Mike!

Is the above yours Mike C?

What a gorgeous sequence macastronome!

Thanks Jim. As I did in 2017, I compared my Starblast images with orbiting observatory photos (the Solar Dynamic Observatory or SDO in particular) to have a comparison for sunspots and solar flares present on April 8. Blink comparative images are shown below.

I would certainly enjoy seeing observations of other members too!

Nice M81 and M82 and Pleiades Rob! Did you get those while at Eagle Bluff?

I thought our members might be interested in a picture I took today in Boca Chica State Park in Texas. Yup it’s SpaceX’s Starship at it’s launch site, hopefully awaiting launch this week. Unfortunately I’ll be on the road returning to MN and not able to stay for the…[Read more]

Darn, I’m in Texas until the 14th so I won’t be able to come. (I might get to see STARSHIP launch #3 however as I am 45 min. from Starbase in Mission TX.)
I did get some images the other night of 12P Pons-Brook below M32 and above Alpheratz. Could see it in a 7 power finder and looked interesting in the 80mm refractor and photographed well.
Also…[Read more]

Thanks Josef. I did use Stellarium as you mentioned and aligned my photo with the position of M82 and M81 in Stellarium at the approximate time of photo. At 7:40 pm StarLink # 1176 passed through the field of view at the same angle as indicated on the photo! As above I don’t know if this caused the stacking process to ignore subsequent images.

M81and M82 plus a StarLink (?) trail from a cold last night in the observatory. After the satellite passed the stacking routine began to ignore frames so I stopped the stacking at 155 frames with 70 ignored! Don’t know if the satellite streak made that happen or not.

Another photo taken tonight of the horsehead nebula area. Fortunately there was little to no streaking artifact likely due to efforts to reduce any condensation on optical elements in scope and camera and a lower relative humidity (in 55-65 range). Results are more satisfactory. Star sizes and color are not optimum but I’m just a beginner at…[Read more]