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Astronomical twilight ends 6:18pm

Transparency: 4/5 to 3/5 (above average to average)
Seeing: 3/5 (average)

Location: Fort Collins, CO

Elevation: 4997 ft. (1523 m.)
Bortle 6 to 7 skies depending upon which direction you're looking.

The Double Cluster is pretty clear tonight. I can see it in my binoculars as well.

M31 is very clear, and in the Binoculars as well.

I then try and catch M8 which is just barely above the building down the hill from me. The time is 5:40pm MST. M8 gives up it’s nebulosity only using the LP filter I use. Orion UltraBlock Narrowband LP filter.

I find M20, M21, M23, M10, M24 with my telescope (8SE) and then:

At 6:15 pm, I go for M22, this is a new object for me. M22 is nice and clear, with good granularity, and some individual stars using the 17mm which gives me 119x. This is usually the best globular cluster eyepiece so i leave it in there for the next object. But before I do that, I decide I’m going to find M22 with the 10x50’s using my red dot star pointer. Note: The nice 9x50 RACI finder scope I’m thinking about will not be usable in this way like the crappy little star pointer does. A telrad would be nice I suppose and certainly it's clear why people like them. I'm just looking into making my 8SE non-GOTO (because I'm clearly a star hopper at heart and really want a 16 inch minimum travel dob from Hubble Optics). We shall see if i really even need to do that since I'm actually successfully using the 8SE to teach me the sky. Since I'm taking notes and all.

I actually am able to find M22 with my cheap 10x50 bino’s. Fuzzy little ball but definitely there and visible to my binoculars.

Next up: M55. It’s roughly 6:27pm MST and I continued through my list. M55 is a nice bright glob tonight. I get down and peer through the star pointer and gauge which section of sky I’m looking for and stand up, put the bino’s to my eyes and with very little searching I found M55!

Next was M25, not sure I found that with my binos really.

Then I was at M18, M17, M16 all three were lovely. It was roughly 6:48pm by then. Because I was mainly looking for nebulosity I didn’t try these three with the 10x50’s. I’m sure i should have.

I catch a glimpse of M76 when I thought I was slewing to M16 in the prior group. I thought, what a waste of battery power. I looked at it briefly, and slewed back to the object on the list, M16.

Next was M11 which I then found with my 10x50’s. A nice little dusting of stars in the binoculars!

Following that was M13 which gave a particularly clear view this evening. I have been looking at star charts for quite a while now, and I have something of a photographic memory (comes in handy during band practice!). So I used the star pointer to give me the section of sky. This section of sky is really hard to look at and not loose your dark adaptation. I use an eyepatch and a black t-shirt pulled over my head backwards as a hood to keep stray ground light out. But trying to find something in the sky and star hop to M13 seems really not doable to me. However, the star pointer does show me where M13 is and I find it easily between Eta and Zeta Herculis. Just southwest? Of Eta Herculis.

Now, this is the cool part. Because I’ve looked so often at the Hercules constellation, I had a good idea that you just went back to Eta and then you could find M92 between Eta and Iota Herculis. Slightly more than halfway.

And there it is, a short star hop after finding M13, I find M92 without the telescope helping me. From a star chart in my memory. Awesome.

Emboldened by this additional object added to my list of things I’ve seen with my 10x50 binos, I went back to Cassiopeia and hunted around there using the 10x50's to look for NGC 663 and NGC 7789. I definitely see NGC 663. I find M45, Hyades, Aldebaran, I use Delta and Gamma Cas to point me towards NGC 884 and NGC 869 aka the Double Cluster. As always, it is beautiful to see. I really like the 10x50’s. Really looking forward to the 20x80’s I’m getting next.

Next I aimed my 8SE towards M57. I tried to see that with my 10x50’s but couldn’t. I thought I did but couldn’t confirm it.

About 7:30pm MST I slewed over to M56. This is a nice Globular. Bright, granularity, some individual stars. Very nice. I go for this one in the bino’s and there it is!

At 7:39 or so, M27 was up in the 8SE and i tried for that with the 10x50’s and I do believe I found that as well!

M71 right after that, and yes, I did in fact use the 10x50’s on this object and found it as well. From M71 I found the Coathanger Cluster. So there are a couple new, easy to find (i think) objects M27 and M71 between Deneb and Altair just south of the coathanger cluster. I’m sure I can do better at star hopping but this is a lot of fun making my 8SE actually teach me something.

M29, the cooling tower, very nice in the scope, very not found in the bino’s. I’ve been looking for this object in the binos for a while. It’s pretty easy to know where it is, there all close to Deneb and all. It being just south and above of Gamma Cygni. But seeing the cooling tower in the 10x50’s might be impossible. Maybe the 20x80’s.

I went on to M15 around 7:43 pm MST. Very bright! Wow, this is amazingly bright! I handily found this in my binos as well!.

M2, M73, M72 all found first by the 8SE and then by star pointer to my binos.

Right at 8:00 pm MST I saw M30 on the list. I know this is a new object. So my crazy memory tells me. So i slew to M30 and gaze upon its beauty for many minutes in the 8SE. I find it easily in my binos with the help of my telescope.

Last couple objects on the list:

M77 - 8:09 pm MST this is only visible by slewing the telescope and introducing motion. I did not find it with the 10x50’s.

M76, which was given a glimpse earlier was not findable by my lazy, about to call it a night, eye.

The temperature was 36 degrees and my hands were beginning to hurt from the cold a bit. The thought of going inside and playing guitar instead of freezing in the somewhat stout wind (6 or 7 miles per hour) is probably why I couldn’t find the little dumbbell nebula.

I see one object on my list from that night I skipped. M34. It keeps getting on the list then falling off at the last minute… it’s still early in the season for that object though. Although I didn’t even stay out long enough to see Orion coming up (over the tree).

I thought to myself, as I packed things up around 8:20pm MST, that was a pretty short session. But it was action packed with lots of new bino objects found!

Tonight (11-14-17) the transparency is “transparent” it is supposed to be cloud free but the seeing is bad (1/5) to poor (2/5) and 20 mile an hour winds. So no star gazing with anything but Binoculars in a parka on a zero gravity chair for me tonight.

I'll let you know how many of those new targets I can see tonight. Pretty sure I’ll be able to find M13 and M92. M27 and M71 will be trickier But I think I can find M30 again.

I'm going outside to try in a few minutes here after I post this.

 

 

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16 hours ago, wookie1965 said:

Great report some lovely objects there.

Greetings Wookie1965,

Thank you sir for saying so!

It was a nice evening!

14 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

Excellent and detail report of a great night of viewing.... I also have the 8SE.. great scope, although these days set up mainly for astrophotography on a permanent pier.

 

hi marsG76,

I love getting good details in there, both to remember them better myself, once written twice remembered as they should probably say, and to help  others in their search.

Someday, when I have a nice 16 inch travel dob, I'll put the 8SE to the task of AP, but that's a ways off. I need a few things prior to that. Like a laptop for instance.

 

8 hours ago, Astro Imp said:

Great report, always good to read of members enjoying the night sky.

Good luck.

Hi Astro Imp,

Thanks! I love reading other's reports as well. Always learn something from them and pick up a few great objects to add to my list as well!

Luck to you as well!

5 hours ago, domstar said:

Wow. What a haul. How do you remember what you've seen? I try and write it down as soon as I get home but I find it a challenge with far fewer targets than that.

Hi Domstar,

Thanks!

I have the habit of taking careful notes on each viewing as I go. There are occasional evenings where I don't but this is not typical. Writing things down right away is the trick.

Having switched to using android instead of the hand control, I'm hoping that the voice to text thing will work and since I must adapt, or stay in the 20th century on the HC, I'm hoping that my android will facilitate even better  and easier note taking.

Also, I start out with a pretty solid list, well researched, constellation based so I know the list eventually without looking at the paper. I date this list, and write down the weather conditions, etc. Then I have a notebook that I"ll write down some descriptions, an occasional sketch when that seems appropriate, and repeatedly going back to the same objects and adding a few night after night through the season as things like M6 and M7 and soon now M8 drop below the horizon with the sun.

I just looked back a month to a list I made for 2am in September that is great at 9:30 now in November. That's the tour of Open clusters, M34 through M38 in Perseus, Auriga, and Gemini.

the particular data points I gather for each object in order to claim I've observed it are as follows (everything gets into a master spreadsheet eventually):

Object
Constellation
cat & #
Messier #
Date
Time
Observations
Comments
Optics
EP Model
Eyepiece mm
Filter
Seeing
Trans
Location

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3 hours ago, Badweather said:

I love getting good details in there, both to remember them better myself, once written twice remembered as they should probably say, and to help  others in their search.

Someday, when I have a nice 16 inch travel dob, I'll put the 8SE to the task of AP, but that's a ways off. I need a few things prior to that. Like a laptop for instance.

Do you keep a note pad or similar with observation notes.. I do, I started with a exercise book, but now just use the Notepad on the iPhone.... at the end of next March I'll scan the exercise book notes and add the Notepad notes and print a book... And Start the notes from the beginning... This way it'll symbolism the a new start.

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18 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

Do you keep a note pad or similar with observation notes.. I do, I started with a exercise book, but now just use the Notepad on the iPhone.... at the end of next March I'll scan the exercise book notes and add the Notepad notes and print a book... And Start the notes from the beginning... This way it'll symbolism the a new start.

I do keep a notebook.

I have kept a journal of sorts for many years. It is now the repository of astronomical observations.

I usually also spend some time making a list of objects to look at. I date this separate piece of paper, and write the weather conditions on it as well. This is easy to keep with me, and I keep the notebook on a music stand with a light attached to it so I can see it from a distance, and use the light to take notes as well.

I'm looking into using android a lot more although this is going to run me into the battery life problem I'm sure.

But it would be nice if voice to text worked well enough to take reasonable notes. using the keyboard is probably not really something that's going to be conducive to good note taking. So voice to text or it's a bust. These old cold fingers barely take paper notes let alone tiny keyboard notes.

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