First Light in the Valley

We finally left rainy MO and arrived in the RGV last Tuesday night to beautiful, warm, clear south Texas skies. Except for a couple of cloudy nights, it has been wonderful ever since except for the nearly full moon and the usual high light pollution. I spent part of today getting my ETX 70 setup, put my stand back together, leveled it, and made a small improvement by adding a handset holder out of a couple of screw hooks. Tonight I decided that full moon or no I was going to look at something. Capella was visible so I decided I'd check out Auriga. I initialized the scope after fiddling with the power a bit. The newly leveled stand works great and the handset cradle even better than that. I pointed the scope in the general direction of North, approximately level tube, and aligned on Capella. It was right at the edge of the field. I centered it and everything after that was right on. The limiting magnitude tonight was about 7.7. I sketched the field around Capella and M31 and got them fairly close. A red light would be handy. I simply counted stars in the fields around a couple more of the brighter stars in Auriga and that agreed pretty well with CdC with the magnitude limited to 7.7 to that was about right. It was a nice clear, cool (60F), moonlit night so perhaps it'll be a bit better later on with no moon. It was an ok night and I even got serenaded by a Dia de los Muertos celebration going on at a nearby Fiestahall.

M76 (Little Dumbell) and Open Cluster M34

Two more Messier objects snagged tonight. This was a near perfect night, no moon, cool in the 40's but not too cold, no wind, clear, and dry. I decided to try for a couple more northern Messier's in Perseus which was up nicely above my deck. I scanned the area with my 7x50's and M34 popped right into sight. A nice view even in binoculars, it was wonderful in my 8" 25mm ep. I'm sure I've seen it before though, just didn't log it. It reminds me of a big black and green garden spider in its web. Very nice with some color evident. I also found my two mag 4 landmark stars between Del Cas (Ruchbah) and Almaak (Gam And) while scanning earlier. M76 was a bit harder to find though. It's right near a fairly bright mag 6 SAO 22551 so I centered it in my 9x50 finder and bingo, right on target. M76 in my 25mm ep is a non-descript grey fuzzy patch, a bit rectangular, without much in the way of other features. There were several small dim stars along one edge that looked interesting though.
While I was in the area, I gave the Andromeda galaxy a quick peek both with binoculars and unaided. It was easy to see unaided but spectacular in binoculars. A real 'wow' factor.
The patch of stars around Alpha Perseus was a glowing mass with unaided vision tonight. I've never seen it quite like that. It actually rivaled the Pleaedes.

A sight for Dia de los Muertos

Finally, a clear night, and what a night it was. I winterized my Casita this afternoon and the sun barely stuck its nose out from behind the clouds that have been with us for the last two weeks or more. It was a prelude to a clear night sky! I listened to Astronomy's podcast earlier in the day and decided to try for NGC7789 in Cassiopeia. I was able to barely make it out with my 9x50's as a foggy patch between Sig Cas and Rho Cas above Bet Cas high in the north above my wife's new pergola. I hauled out the 8" dob for one last look before we head south for the winter and snagged it easily. It seemed a bit brighter in my 9x50 finder and was spectacular in my 25mm ep. It even reminded me a bit of our old high school mascot, the Trojan. It looked like a laughing skull facing down and to the left with a fancy headgear like a Roman legionaire (or a Trojan) might wear. It appeared as a foggy white patch against a black background with lots of faint stars highlighting the mouth, eyes, etc of the skull. A very nice view just before Halloween or Dia de los Muertos in the Valley.
Jupiter was shining bright to my rear so I swung the scope around for a quick peek. It was bright enough to hurt my eyes so I just glanced at the moons: all four were lined up on one side of Jupiter in a southerly direction.
Tonight was also the inagural appearance of my new Denver Observer's Chair. I finished it a few weeks ago but had not had an opportunity to use it. Since I had the scope pointed at a high angle, it came in handy. It worked well at both high and low settings as advertised. I need to add the stair tread and hose in order to make the seat adjustment a bit more stable though. It had a tendency to fall all the way down with the least provocation. It didn't try to dump me though and worked out just fine.

Another 'Mercury Morning'

Six thirty a.m. in the Ozarks and it is another 'Mercury Morning'. That's when the sky is clear, sun starting to come up in the east, and Mercury is strutting his stuff. The air even seems a bit more metallic. This morning was special in that Venus and Saturn joined the show in a nice linear parade up the sky. Venus was high, about 40 degrees or so, followed by Mercury by about 5 degrees, and close by was Saturn, only two and a half degrees (about half a binocular field) from Mercury. I was confused at first since Mercury was quite a bit brighter than Saturn which was just barely visible to my unaided eye. Both Saturn and Mercury were clearly visible in my 8x50's and easy to find but I probably would have missed Saturn without binoculars. It would alternately brighten and dim as the haze boiled on the horizon. If the sky remains clear and I can drag myself out at 6:30 it will be fun to watch Saturn catch up and pass Mercury over the next several days.