Location: at home in Tomball, TX
Cloud cover: less than 5%
Transparency: average (3/5)
Seeing: avg (3/5) or sometimes slightly better
Darkness: no moon, city glow
Wind: almost none
Temperature: 76º-82º
Humidity: 57%-67%
Dew Point: 65º
Time: 10:00 pm – 12:30 am CDT
OTA: 8″ SCT
Guidescope: 70mm refractor

First light with guidescope. Very disappointed to discover PHD Guiding software did not recognize the NexImage and it claimed my scope did not support pulse mode. Fiddled with it longer than I should have. Bottom line: zero success.

Guidescope was very useful for making fine adjustments while D50 was attached to the main scope. Best practice using laptop to view real-time output from NexImage in the guidescope, but eyepiece use works ok, too.

Tried to image Jupiter, photos were awfully blurry. First image seemed to show moon touching jupiter’s limb, no other moons. Tried again with ep. No moons visible, black spot visible at edge. Re-installed D50, tried to re-focus, star image was an irregularly shaped streak even with relatively short exposure times less than 1/10 second. I suspect vibration from the shutter, but it was late and I was tired of trying to debug it.

Finally reverted to visual observation. By this time two distinct black spots were visible. I thought I was seeing a double eclipse, but later cross-ref with SNP and SkyViewCafe indicated one spot was the shadow of Europa and the other Ganymede itself. In the illustration below, the top spot is the shadow of Europa and the bottom spot is Ganymede.

Illustration of Eclipse on Jupiter's clouds

Location: at home in Tomball, TX
Cloud cover: less than 5%
Transparency: average (3/5)
Seeing: below avg (4/5)
Darkness: no moon, city glow
Wind: almost none (see below)
Temperature: 70º-72º
Humidity: 95%+
Dew Point: 69º+
Time: 10:45 pm – 12:15 am CDT
OTA: 8″ SC

First light using Starry Night Pro to control the telescope via serial cable. I have an old version of SNP (4.5) and there are a few minor user interface quirks, but generally I was pleased with the operation. Also first light using DIYPhotoBits to control the Nikon D50 via USB. I was very pleased with the results. I’ve actually modded DIYPB to display images after download using IrfanView, making it much easier to center and check focus.

I started with M57, the Ring Nebula. Exposures above 10 seconds exhibited elongation. It didn’t occur to me until later to use DIYPB’s time lapse feature to collect a set of images for stacking, so I only captured two at that speed. M57 is hardly visible at only 10 seconds, even using ISO1600, so there’s not much to see there.

Next I captured photos of Jupiter and the Galilean moons. Due to the bad seeing and the humidity the image quality was quite poor. The two main bands were visible but murky and the entire image seemed slightly out of focus. I rechecked the focus with the Hartman mask and that was not the problem. The composite photo below shows the relative positions of the planet and its four moons. Io and Europa (on the left) passed in conjunction over the next couple of hours, but it was already late and I didn’t want to stay up for it.

Jupiter and its moons (composite image)

Last I photographed M52, an open star cluster in the constellation Cassiopeia. As earlier with M57, I was unable to get an exposure longer than 10 seconds without elongation. It occurred to me then to use DIYPB’s time lapse feature to take several photos (10, actually) in quick succession then try to stack and merge them later. I tried stacking with RegiStax5, but I was not pleased with the results: the stars looked dull and washed out. I stacked the frames by hand and the result was much better.

Composite image detail of M52(click image for 1000x800 resolution)

This image shows far fewer stars than you might see in a typical photo of M52. This view is representative of what you might see in an amateur telescope. You mileage will vary depending on your telescope and sky conditions.

Location: at home in Tomball, TX
Cloud cover: 0%
Transparency: above average (4/5)
Seeing: est. avg (3 or 4 out of 5)
Darkness: no moon, city glow
Wind: almost none (see below)
Temperature: 80º-85º
Humidity: 70%-85%
Dew Point: 72º-75º
Time: 9:00 pm – 1:00 am CDT
OTA: 8″ SC

Began with visual observation of Jupiter. Best view I have ever seen. Two main belts easily seen, two thin faint belts also visible in steadier seeing. All four Galilean moons visible: one left and three right.

Took photos of many targets using the D50. Most images had elongated stars varied in length and direction. In a couple of photos the stars are almost doughnut-shaped with dark centers. A few photos had no elongation, even at long exposures. Magnification shows elongated shapes are often irregularly shaped. My best explanation for the elongation is wind, although I felt no wind all night with only rare light gusts. Shutter is on 5 second timer. Perhaps I will try a longer timer next time.

Photos of M103 and M31 suffered from elongation. Photos of η Cas and Albireo (shown below) came out well. M76 was barely discernible even with a 30 second exposure at ISO 1600. Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC6543) small, vivid teal, somewhat hazy — maybe from initial dew buildup that I didn’t recognize until much later.

Also took several photos of Jupiter and its moons, none of which were very good because of (as yet undiscovered) dew on the corrector. Several photos of Neptune and Uranus showed good color but no detail.

Albireo (β Cyg - double star). Click image for large (1500x1000) size.

Location: my backyard
Time: 8pm – 11pm
cloud cover: none
temperature: low 60s
humidity: maybe 60% climbing to 80%
seeing: good (4/5)
transparency: excellent (5/5)
darkness: no moon, suburban light pollution
instrument: 8″ SCT

Don and Carol came, brought binoculars. We started by observing Jupiter. Polar cloud caps visible, almost convinced myself I could see the GRS. Four moons visible, Don and I remembered all names but Callisto.

Pointed out summer triangle Vega-Deneb-Altair and constellation Cygnus. Observed familiar double stars Albireo and epsilon lyrae.

Clusters next. Started with M39 OC in Cygnus: clear blue pinpoints. Then looked at M15 GC in Pegasus: fuzzy ball with several distinct stars.

Next came planetary nebulae M27 in Vulpecula and M57 in Lyra. Outline of M27 was distinct but dumbell shape difficult to discern. Carol’s eyes seemed more sensitive than Don’s or mine. Ring of M57 clear, Carol could see dim star at center. First time I remember seeing planetaries so clearly.

Moved to Andromeda M31. Again Carol could see some swirling where Don and I only saw fuzzy core.

Ice giants came last. Uranus was a nice cyan disk with a white spec, remarkable color. Neptune was small, hard to make out as a disk or any color.

Finally used binoculars to view rising Pleiades. Very nice view in 12×50. Air was still enough for me to see three or four stars with naked eye, in the past it seems like I mostly saw a collective glow.

Dew became a problem later, corrector began fogging lightly around 10:45 even with dew shield. Humidity had coated the binocular

Location: Tomball, TX

About 10:30pm

Conditions: initially clear, slightly humid

Setup and aligned telescope. First target Jupiter. Clearly saw black circle of a moon’s shadow on Jupiter’s disk. Within minutes clouds appeared overhead and ended the session.

Location: Uniontown, OH
Cloud cover: < 5%
Transparency: avg.
Seeing: avg (3/5)
Darkness: city sky glow, no moon
Wind: < 5mph
Humidity: 85%-90%
Temperature: 65°F-70°F
Start Time: 9:30 pm EDT
End Time: 10:30 pm EDT
Instrument: Meade 50mm telescope; eyepieces: 17.5mm, 12mm, 9mm
Bushnell 12×50 binoculars

Saw Venus and Saturn side by side in binoculars. With telescope Venus crescent and Saturn’s rings clearly visible, but not gap between rings and planet. Could not find Titan at ~8.5

Saw Jupiter and 4 Galilean moons. Jared drew diagram of moons relative to planet, then searched for reference and identified each of the four moons.

Location: Tomball, TX
Cloud cover: 5%-10% – Stratus – up to 80% later
Transparency: avg.
Seeing: avg (3/5)
Darkness: city sky glow, no moon
Limiting Magnitude: 4 (unaided), 9-10 (scope)
Wind: mild
Humidity: 65%-70%
Temperature: mid-70’s
Start Time: 9:30 pm CDT
End Time: 11:00 pm CDT

Instrument: Bushnell 3″ Newtonian

Venus: bright half disc resembling 1st quarter moon.

Saturn: crisp outline and ring separation; Titan trailing ~3 ring diameters behind planet.

Graffias (beta1 Sco): split double beta2 Sco with 7.9mm eyepiece. Both stars nice blue.

Jupiter: clear disc, no cloud bands visible. Moons Europa, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto trailing eastward, followed by HD 152516 (HIP 82734) at ~2X separation of Jupiter-Callisto.

Increasing cloud cover made further observing difficult.

Cloud cover: 5%-10% – Cirrus
Transparency: below avg.
Seeing: below avg (4/5)
Darkness: city sky glow, no moon
Limiting Magnitude: 4 (unaided), 8 (bino)
Wind: none
Humidity: 85%-90%
Temperature: mid-70’s

Instrument: Bushnell 12×50

Compared to last night, tonight was a a little “hazy-er”. Not sure if this is due to worse transparency or higher humidity. Last night’s transparency might have been better than I rated it.

Jupiter was a bright disc surrounded by atmospheric glow that encompassed its moons. Callisto, Ganymede, Io, and Europa were all visible.

Antares appeared much as last night, yellow-orange with a lot of atmospheric sparkling that included green.

Vesta formed ~120° angle with HIP 80793 and phi Oph.

Spica was bright and blue; Arcturus yellow-white.

I could just make out the bright oval of Saturn, but no ring separation and no moons.

Venus large and very bright orange-white. Could not discern phase, perhaps due to brightness and/or haze.

Cloud cover: 10%-20% – Cirrus
Transparency: below avg.
Seeing: avg (3/5)
Darkness: city sky glow, no moon
Limiting Magnitude: 4 (unaided), 8 (bino)
Wind: none
Humidity: 75%-80%
Temperature: mid-70’s

Instrument: Bushnell 12×50

Jupiter: bright disc, no cloud bands. Right bino tube seems to have slight astigmatism; right eye has no astigmatism in left tube.

Ganymede: distinct dot ~2d right of Jupiter’s disc. According to S&T’s online utility for identifying Jupiter’s moons, the dot must be Ganymede.

Antares: yellowish-orange color that sparkles under magnification. Very nice.

M4 not visible, presumably due to sky glow and low-ap binos.

The “Antares pentagon” fills 80%-90% of bino’s FOV.

Vesta: approx. same mag. as nearby HIP80793, distinctly dimmer than phi-chi-psi ophiuchus.

Celestia data for Vesta was incorrect. To display Vesta’s correct position, Celestia’s database must be updated. In the file Celestia/data/asteroids.scc, in the section for Vesta, the orbital parameters should be:

These values were copied from wikipedia’s entry on Vesta. Some values lacked precision of metric values, so where more precision was desired the values were computed by dividing Vesta metric data by Earth metric data.

Used house fan to repel mosquitos. Need two fans as mosquitos bit leeward side (get it?) inside shirt.