Managed to stay awake enough to open up and make some progress on my Caldwell Catalogue observations. With all the confusion of the existence/location of NGC 6882, I wanted to have another go at observing NGC6885 and satisfy myself as to what is the most obvious cluster with my observing setup. Session Data Date: 23/07/2014 Time: 22:39 – 00:51 UTSeeing: I Perfectly Stable,Transparency: Clear. Air Pressure: 1017mb, Temp: 16C, Humidity 98%, Wind Speed: 2mph Caldwell 37: NGC6885, Collinder417…
Solar Projection Box
Still too light at night for deep sky stuff, but as the Sun has been shining almost every day for the last few weeks, I’ve been able to continue concentrating on some Solar observing work. My previous attempts at drawing Sunspot detail were OK, but positioning isn’t particularly accurate. I remember seeing a Solar Projection box being used at the Winchester Weekend a few years ago and was impressed at how simple it would be to…
Observing Session: A Week of Solar Sketching 21-27, June
A discussion at our last astronomy club meeting had me thinking it would be fun to try sketching the Sun over a period of time. As luck would have it, I had made a sketch earlier that afternoon, so decided to give it a go for a week. All observations were made using the TMB 80 refractor and a Delos 10mm eyepiece @ 48x. I did try using the R.C but found the TMB’s image…
Observing Session: 24, June
Well the clear nights are coming thick and fast and although this was a weekday, I managed to stay awake by the time it started to get dark. However, I think I started to observe a little too early, as the first couple of objects were not seen. Another half an hour might have made all the difference. Session Data Date: 24/06/2014 Time: 22:28 – 00:35 UTSeeing: I Perfectly Stable, Transparency: Clear. Temp: 12C, Humidity 91%, Wind Speed:…
Observing Session: 20, June
The run of clear nights continues, but consecutive Midnight starts is just too much during the week. Fortunately, this evening was a Friday, so after a good night out at my local Astronomy club, it was still clear when I got back – so I opened up. I’ve had another bash at drawing. I got a pencil assortment which contains one each of 2B, B, HB, H and 2H grades. While these seem OK, I…
Observing Session: 14, June
I’m really pissed off at the moment! For the last 10 days or so, we’ve had a pretty good streak of reasonably clear skies. The big problem is that by the time it’s dark enough – about midnight – I’m so pooped that my bed is a more attractive proposition than the observatory 🙁 Even if I wasn’t, the full Moon blazing away, killed any faint glimmer of enthusiasm that I could muster 🙁…