fealeybob14

I’ve been getting familiar with my new setup of scope and mount (Quattro 150P and HEQ5 pro respectively). Below is my attempt of M33 a popular target for amateurs and professionals. It graces the cover of the November 2024 Sky and Telescope and is a tempting target this time of year.
The photo below is 251, 5 second frames stacked with ASI…[Read more]

Dodge Center outreach event of 9-5-2024 was sparsely attended (mainly by club members and Ingvild Herfindahl the library director). Ingvild did her best to get the North Park lighting turned off but Excel Energy did not respond to her request. We had a good discussion during the presentation portion (about Orion-Meade departure from commercial…[Read more]

Outreach at Frontenac State Park last night (8/31) was outstanding. Large crowd of old and young, clear dark skies and great presentation and discussions by club members. Frontenac has fairly good horizons except to the east where tree tops block view a bit. A zenith dark sky recording appears below. Max readings (MPSAS = 21.07 and NELM =…[Read more]

Tonight we may be treated to both Perseid meteors and a geomagnetic storm with aurora.  I say “may” because both are a half day or so past peak.

The Gamehaven Summer Camp outing was well attended by scouts and staff, the latter very accommodating to RAC members.  Lights were off and the camp director’s plan for the activity was just right.  RAC members were given a Gamehaven Summer Camp 2024 patch at the end.  The patch appears in the attached figure, a dark sky meter recording below (t…[Read more]

Terrific Milky Way shot Duane! Nice corpuscular rays. Glad you two had fun at Root River.
I’ve been following solar cycle 25 closely on unmanned spaceflight. I don’t think the cycle has peaked as yet, at least based on sunspot numbers. Check out this link: https://spaceweather.com/images2024/02aug24/sunspotnumber2.jpg

I was lazy and stayed at my home observatory last nite.  Good skies for sure, so I hope Josef and Duane enjoyed observing at Root River.  I have a new mount and scope and was educating myself on how to operate them.  The mount is the HEQ5 Pro and the scope is the Quattro 150P, all Sky Watcher hardware.  Spent $2000+ of my savings, but hey I’m not…[Read more]

Excellent members event at Eagle Bluff last night and early this am.
A zenith dark sky recording is shown below

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?