A new year and finally a clear day

From the looks of my last blog, it looks like we've had a bleak winter so far for observing. Most of December was either cloudy, lit by a full moon, or occupied by a cruise to the Yucatan. January hasn't been much better. It finally cleared off this weekend and I was able to set up my ETX and check out Mars, coming up about 8:00pm. It made it over the top of my neighbor's shed about 10:00 and I was able to get a good view with my 10mm ep and 2x barlow. I appeared as a not so crisp reddish ball about the size of the letter 'o' in my eyepiece. Since the diameter of Mars is only about 14" that gives me a good idea of what to expect the next time I try to split a double with the ETX. The Autostar did a good job of holding Mars in the center of the FOV even at high power (70x). I was not able to make out any detail on Mars.

The moon and jupiter

The moon is getting bigger so tonight I decided to set up in the front where the view of the moon and jupiter is best and the light polution greatest in hopes of snagging a 'walk-by' or two. There weren't many walkers out and the ones that were seemed to be more interested in their dog's business so I was left to my own devices. I aligned on Vega and Altair which were both bright in the west and had no problem. I was set up on my Workmate which gives a good solid base but is a bit too high and not perfectly level. No matter, it worked just fine. I used the car to block some of the light from a nextdoor street light and that worked good too. The moon was nice with my 10mm with or without a 2x barlow. I used a green filter to cut some of the light. The trio of Theophilus, Catherina, and Cyrillus were most apparent. It took a bit of getting used to the LR shift between my ETX and my guidebook but it worked out ok. I was also able to make out Posidonius. Several much smaller craters were also visible but I did not attempt to identify them tonight. I also checked out Jupiter and was able to see all four moons with my 10mm ep at 35x. There were no other stars nearby in the FOV.
All in all I called the night a success and quit as the moon was slipping behind a palm tree across the street.
Last night we were driving back from Zapata through McCook and stopped just north of McCook. We were able to see the milky way and make out most of Perseus but the entire southern sky was washed out due to skyglow from McAllen and Mission lights.

Beaten back by M74

M74 in Pisces is starting to become a monster. I've been out several times with my ETX70 with no luck. I can find the spot without a problem but can't quite make out even a hint of M74, a very dim galaxy. I suspect light polution is the culprit but still haven't found a good dark site. I was able to see about 30 stars from my backyard observatory tonight. It was cool, clear, with no wind after a light rain earlier today so the seeing was pretty good. I saw about 30 stars in M45 which was also visible unaided in the eastern sky. The field around M74 in my 27 mm ep consists of a fairly bright parallelogram with Eta Psc forming one corner and a dim pair of stars including 104 Psc the opposite corner. 101 Psc and HR457 form the other two corners. Eta Psc is in line with a pair of 7th mag stars and I was able to barely make out a couple of 8th mag stars in the field. I convinced myself that I was able to occasionally make out a pinpoint of light in the vicinity of where I knew M74 lay but no hint of a glow.
M33 was also elusive although I was able to see it previously in Rolla with my 8" dob.

Double Cluster in Perseus

I stumbled upon this pretty open cluster by just slewing my ETX70 into a dark area of the sky toward the north. The 'identify' function said it was NGC884, part of the double cluster. At first it looked like two or three open clusters with a 'tail' of about 6 or 7 stars. The fuzzy on the left looked like a circle of dim stars. Very nice with my 27mm ep. The other fuzzy is NGC869. Stock 2 is nearby but I didn't look for it as I was unaware until I saw it in CdC after shutting down for the night.
M31 was nice and a bit larger with no moon but still pretty dim in the ETX. Uranus and Jupiter had all slipped too far west by the time I had the scope setup so I missed the planets tonight. M45 was high and bright, even with no scope. Lots of stars were visible including all of Casseopia's 'W'. Not a bad night at all. Nice 69 F, clear, moonless evening in south Texas.

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.