Category Archives: "Backyard"

Finally we get a decent break from cloud and rain systems from hell!  Time to get out of the house and fire up the 8″ Edge and the Rev 2 for some globular hunting against half full moon.  So the cloud break during the moon phase did not do me any favors for DSO viewing but these days you have to take what you can get! Conditions were not perfect with an occasional thin layer of clouds passing by but the globular viewing was better than expected.  This took me by surprise considering the presence of the evil orb.  So I four stared the mighty CG-5 and put it to work.  My first target was M-3 and the CG-5 nailed it.  The Rev 2 went to work stacking a very nice image of the cluster.  Lots of nice pin point stars in a tight formation.  Next target was M-5 and again the CG-5 put it into the viewing screen.  This cluster had much more to offer with a lot of pin point stars at a much brighter magnitude with a nice dense core.  Third target was M-53 which was the runt of the bunch.  It has some nice pin point […]

I have been eagerly waiting for a decent night to align with the work schedule to dust off the equipment for a little star gazing before we lose our winter sky gems.  Mike Dannefeldt and I decided to give it a shot on Tuesday the 26th as conditions were looking good for clears skies and the evil orb (moon) would not be an issue during our viewing time window.  I set up the 8″ Edge SCT with a four star alignment and plugged in the R2 Imager with the new high definition screen. We manage to pack it in with views of M-42, NGC-2024 (Flame), M-1 (Crab),M-81/M-82, M-51, M-108, M-106, M-109,  NGC-2392 (Eskimo) and M-104 (Sombrero).  My neighbor’s deck lighting was making some of the viewing to the southwest difficult.  As we were viewing the Eskimo nebulae there was an object passing through the screen at a slow pace.  As the imager shot a frame of the object would show up moving against the grain in short lines.  It took about 30 seconds to move across the 7″ screen.  I have seen satellites move cross the screen before and they move through the screen fast.  This object moved considerably slower […]

Not enough time to set up a telescope rig? Too cold to spend a lot of hours out in the boonies? Worried about the clouds staying away long enough? Binocular Astronomy is GREAT for a quick, easy, and somewhat inexpensive way to get in some astro time! https://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/dsbinoc/dsbinoc.html https://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/binomess/binomess.html https://www.astroleague.org/programs/binocular-variable-star-program https://www.astroleague.org/programs/BinoDS_Intro https://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/plantery/plnobscl.html https://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclub/galileo_club/galileo_club.html Clear Skies! Jeff

Not too often does January have crystal clear nights here in the Quad Cities. Even more rare to get two back to back during the New Moon! A friend of mine has started to take an interest in Amateur Astronomy so I felt this was the perfect opportunity to let him see what it’s like to use some real gear. The first night went really well. After he arrived just before 11pm we were able to setup, polar align, 3-Star align fairly easily such that by midnight shots were being taken and a great time was had. Rather than taking the entire rig down when he left, I covered the mount, crossed my fingers, and hoped for another clear night despite a poor forecast.Night two I got home around 8:30pm to be greeted outdoors by a high haze. Undeterred, I was soon taking test lights of M42 that were blowing my mind! I spent that entire night with a bottle of Woodford Reserve to keep me warm whilst falling back in love with backyard astrophotography.