fealeybob14

Took my 10 x 50 binocs to Keller Sunday night 9/25. Nice clear and dark sky especially towards the zenith. Milky Way was easily seen from N to SE. Binocular highlights included M22 M13 M3 M5 M8 Double Cluster M31 and M11. The last (Wild Duck cluster in Scutum) had the appearance of globular with a bright star in front of it in binocs. Seen…[Read more]

Sky should be clear tonight but it’s quite windy.  I’ll probably go to Keller and see how things are.  If winds die down later tonight could be good observing.

Bob

Here’s another image of the carbon star V Aquilae taken on 9-19 at 1 am (or so). The same camera and guide scope as on the 9-6 picture was used. The exposure time was 4 seconds and I used a different program Sharp Cap Pro. The star colors are closer to the visual appearance in the telescope.

Addendum:  In my post of Sept. 6th, I listed the magnitude of a star as ’89’ in the photo when in fact it should have been ’80’ as in Josef’s map.

Saturday night Aug 4th at the RAC outreach event we observed a ‘carbon star’ in Aquila. Below is the map Josef has provided on our home page along with a photo taken Sunday Aug 5th from my backyard of carbon star V Aquilae. The cropped photo aligns with the stars V Aquilae and 40 on the map and was taken with the Orion Mini 6.3 color camera and…[Read more]

Dark skies tonight 8-31 but seeing conditions only fair. Imaged Saturn and Jupiter the latter showing Io’s shadow (arrow in pic below). Camera Orion 6.3 M pixel and scope Meade 10 in. SCT

Ha ha!  Thanks Jim … go and get it!

In the image above the SUN was taken with the Orion 4.5 in. Starblast with a sun filter and Jupiter was imaged by an ASI 183MC camera and my 10 inch Meade SCT.

It is too bad we are at the mercy of the weather! Yesterday (the 26th) the sun was out and in the early morning so was Jupiter. The sun remains active and Jupiter is starting to dominate the night skies.

A still image from today’s (Aug 6th) SOHO C3 camera showing a probable CME (red arrow) as well as a small comet (yellow arrow).  See these events in the gif animation of C3 images above as well.

Good conditions last night. Took some backyard pictures with the Orion 6.3 mpixel camera and 60 mm guide scope. I’m still a novice at deep sky photography but am amazed at what a short time exposure can do (15 to 60 seconds). M 22 and M 31 are below.

Great C3 SOHO video of Mercury swinging around an active sun in the last 4 days

Thanks Jim!

An early morning (around 1 am on 7-14-2022) photo of Saturn. Sky conditions were good. Saturn’s rings are ‘closing’ compared to last year but the Cassini division is clearly visible. The image below has been processed by Registax6 (350 frames) and Photoshop Elements. The scope was my 10 inch SCT and the camera was the Orion 6.3 Mpixel camera.

BTW I misspelled that double star; should be Albireo!

Some recent Starblast 4.5 in. telescope – Orion 6.3 megapixel images. The small inset (lower right) image is the colorful double star Alberio in Cygnus.

CME (on L) from earlier today (6-26) courtesy the SOHO LASCO C3 camera https://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images.html. The CME source is possibly the large sunspot group 3038. The background stars of the SOHO image, when compared to a Stellarium view at the time (R), show the sun’s position in Gemini near Castor’s left foot!

The sun continues to be active and interesting.  Below is image from today (6/20/2022) taken with the 4.5 inch Starblast reflector (with Orion sun filter) and the Orion 6.3 Mpixel camera.

Probable CME today (image).  The complex sunspot group (3007) may be the origin.

Two possible coronal mass ejections (CME’s) from th