Cameras: Orion Starshoot DSI II, Orion Starshoot Autoguider
Software: Maxim DL Essentials, PHD Guiding

Alignment stars: Arcturus, Antares
Calibration stars: Deneb, Albireo

Very nice clear night. Still a bit warm, even late, but better than it has been. After the two star align I did the polar align routine using Antares. The mount GOTO was right on and tracking well. PHD guiding was doing a great job making minor adjustments. I probably could have gone for longer exposure times but I think the shots below turned out pretty well. I still need a bit more practice and information on processing the shots after stacking them. (Anyone know of a good book or resource?)

Messier 17 (M17) – The Swan Nebula or the Omega Nebula
This was my first target. It was very easy to find in the dark sky. The image is a stack of 20 1 minute exposures. The mount guided great for over 30 minutes. I also got a small set of 120 second exposures but I have not stacked/processed them yet.

Messier 27 (M27) – The Dumbbell Nebula
The Dumbbell Nebula was almost directly overhead and I had a hard time keeping the mount guided. I think my balance may have been off a bit with the way the scope was pointing almost straight up. I had to refocus since I forgot to set the lock screw and the weight of the camera caused the focuser to slip when the scope was pointing straight up. The image below is a stack of 7 1 minute exposures.

Messier 8 (M8) – The Lagoon Nebula
The Lagoon Nebula was also very easy to find. It is in the same area of the sky as M17 – this area was nice and dark. Again the mount guided well for this set of images. The image below is a stack of 20 1 minute exposures.

I forgot to take the dark frames for the night. I was going to, I even set the camera and scope up for it, but then I started looking at Jupiter and forgot all about them.

All of these images have also been posted to my Flickr page here.

I have created a page to add to my log book with a circle to represent the eyepiece. The circle has a light grid in it to help me with spacing and such. There is space to record all the necessary information (Object, location, date, time, equipment, seeing, transparency, notes, etc).

Download the blank sketch document here: Object_Sketch.doc

I found several references around the Internet for different sketch circles, I did not find any that included a grid layout. I think the grid will be useful especially for a beginner (such as myself) specifically when trying to accurately represent the size, location in the FOV, and space between objects.

Here is a preview of what the blank sheet looks like:

Not the best conditions for observing – lots of passing clouds but the seeing was a bit better than it has been. Star images were steady at 107x (7mm Nagler). I used Venus to get the finder and scope aligned. Venus, Saturn, and Mars were all visible just after sunset but they disappeared behind the tree line pretty quickly.

While waiting for it to get a bit darker I focused on Albireo and easily split the bright yellow and blue double with the 9mm Nagler. This is a very pretty double and I enjoy looking at it.

Messier 29 (M29) – Found the cluster with the finder and then with the 9mm. Both the 9mm and the 22mm showed the 6 brightest stars. The 9mm revealed 2 more faint star and the 7mm brought out 2 more. Below is a sketch. I spent a fair bit of time on this one trying to get a sketch that represented what I seeing in the eye piece.

I inverted the original sketch and cleaned up the stars a bit using Gimp.

Messier 71 (M71) – I am still not able to find this with the SV80. Will try again another night using the 8″ SCT. I am sure I am in the right place, but I was not able to resolve the globular.

Messier 39 (M39) – I did not have much luck finding this one either. The clouds were thicker and I was not able to find my reference stars. After a few minutes of searching I thought that I may have finally got it in my eyepiece but I am not 100% sure. I should be able to find this with this scope so it will be a target on another night.

Messier 13 (M13) – Since I was having trouble locating the other targets on my plan I decided to point the scope towards something a bit brighter – M13 the Great Cluster in Hercules. It was easy to find nearly directly overhead. The bright core was easy to see with the 22mm Pan and the 9mm Nagler. The 9mm showed a few details of individual stars and with the 7mm I was able to resolve a few more individual stars closer to the core.

Alignment Stars: Arcturus, Antares
Calibration Stars: Deneb, Alberio

Not the best night for observing, but it has been a long week and I just wanted to get outside, look up, and get a bit lost in the stars. I have not had the Celestron C8 set up in a couple of months and I have been looking forward to trying some of my new eyepieces in it.

I installed Bob’s Knobs on this scope since the last time I set it up so I had to collimate first. Took a little while to do this, but it would have taken a lot longer with the Phillips screws originally installed. I collimated using the 13mm and 9mm Nagler eyepieces.

I did a quick polar alignment – not really spending a lot of time getting a precise polar alignment since I was only planning on visual observing. Even so I had the mount aligned pretty well. Did the two star alignment with a couple of calibration stars and the GOTOs were right on.

The views through the 33mm were very nice. Crisp and bright with a nice wide field of view.

My plan for the night included M27, M29, and M71 before the light from Moon rise washed out most of the fainter objects.

From my observing notes:

Messier 27 (M27) The Dumbbell Nebula – A lot larger that I thought it would be in the 22mm Panoptic. Looked like 2 faint clouds in the 13mm Nagler. Tried the O III filter which produced a bit better contrast that showed more detail to the center. The 33mm SWAN showed the nebula with a nice star field background. This will definitely be a target for my camera in the near future.

Messier 29 (M29) – Open Cluster – In the 22mm Panoptic I observed 7 bright stars and 6 fainter stars. The 13mm revealed a couple more fainter stars. In the 13mm I could count 16 stars that appeared to be part of the cluster.

Messier 71 (M71) – The moon rose about 10:30 and I was not able to find this one in the eye piece. Will try again another night.

After the Moon rose I observed M4, M3, M10, and M12. I was able to observe each of these objects, but I did not make notes.

It was pretty warm and mostly cloudy. A few breaks in the clouds as they passed allowed some views of Venus and Saturn. Around 10:00 PM it cleared up a bit to allow me to look for a few Messier objects. I was able to view M3 and M94. I looked for M51 but was unable to find it.

Not really the best night for star gazing, but I just felt like getting outside and looking up for a bit. I did not have an observing plan, I just used the July Sky Map to locate a few objects.

Since the conditions were not really good for deep sky observing I am happy that I was able to find a few things. By 11:00 PM the clouds had pretty much taken over the sky so I called it a night.

From my observing notes:

Venus was low in the west. Very bright. The phase appears to be a little over half, approaching gibbous. It was easy to see the phase in the 22mm, 9mm, and 7mm.

Saturn was very nice in the 7mm. Shadow of rings across planet surface showing good contrast. Only one moon was visible – Titan. I was able to see the ring shadow and moon in all eye pieces but the views were the best in the 7mm Nagler.

Messier 3 (M3) – From the bright star Arcturus I slowly worked to the west with the 22mm Panoptic until I was able find the fuzzy globular cluster. I could not resolve any individual stars at 22mm, 9mm, or 7mm. Just a faint fuzzy object with a brighter core. Going to have to revisit on a night that is darker and more clear.

Messier 94 (M94) – I was very surprised to be able to find this. I scanned between the two stars that make up the constellation Canes Venatici with the 22mm Panoptic. Very faint, small, with a faint border around a bright core.

I spent a bit of time looking for M51 but was unable to find it.

For all images I used PHD for guiding, MaxIm DL Essentials for imaging with the DSI, and Deep Sky Stacker to stack the exposures.

On Saturday (7/3/2010) I set up to image through the Celestron 6″ SCT with a f/6.3 focal reducer while using the Astro-Tech 66ED to guide.

Early in the evening I used Venus to get the two scopes aligned and to test focus of the imaging camera and the guide camera.

After doing the two star alignment on the mount I used the polar align routine on the hand controller to make sure I had my alignment down. Not bad, had to make a few minor adjustments.

I then redid the two star alignment using Spica and Arcturus for my alignment stars and Antares, Deneb, Albireo, and Vega for my calibration stars.

The first target for the camera was the globular cluster Messier 4 (M4). It took some work to get the globular in focus, and I think I am still a little off – something I am going to have to work on a bit. The first set of images were over exposed, I changed the screen stretch to MaxVal and that fixed that. I ended up with 10 60 second exposures.

I then moved on the Messier (M80). I forced calibration in PHD after moving to each new object. I ended up with 10 decent 60 seconds exposures and stacked them to get the image below.

Messier 22 (M22) is a great globular cluster to observe visually and I think if I can increase my exposure times a bit it will be a great one to photograph as well. The image below is 12 60 seconds exposures stacked.

This one was not on my plan, but Mary Shannon had seen M57 at the SkyWatch on Friday night and wanted me to try to get a photo of it. Messier 57 (M57), also known as the Ring Nebula, turned out to be my favorite image of the night. My guiding was off, I think I have an issue with balance, but the 7 30 second exposures look pretty good stacked.

Sunday (7/4/2010) night was a bit warmer with a light breeze. I decided to image through the Astro-Tech 66ED with an Orion Skylight filter and use the Celestron 6″ SCT to guide. I just wanted to get a feel for the difference in imaging between the two scopes.

I went through the same alignment process as the night before. Again using Spica and Arcturus to align and Antares, Deneb, Albireo, and Vega for calibration. I did not do the polar alignment routine, the GOTOs to the calibration stars were pretty much dead on so I figured it was probably still in good alignment.

The first target was Messier 10 (M10). Here are 16 60 second exposures stacked.

Then on to one of my new favorites to observe Messier 20 (M20) the Trifid Nebula. It was hard to find in the camera at first, the nebula does not show up until you increase the exposures to 10 seconds or more, because of this it took some work to get it close to center. I ended up with 21 60 second exposures and I think it turned out great.

I still had a problem with guiding. It wanted to drift south and the guider could not keep up. Not sure if it is a polar alignment problem or a problem with balance. Going to have to look at this a bit more. The PHD test moves the mount fine E & W RA and N & S DEC so I think the guide pulses are being sent. Going to have to research this a bit more to figure it out.

Both the 6″ SCT and the AT66ED produced decent images with DSI. With the wider field it was easier to locate and center images in the AT66ED. I still need to work on fine tuning my focus but I am pretty happy with how the images turned out. I learned a lot about the camera, the scopes, and the process plus I really enjoyed taking them (that’s what really matters).

Alignment Stars: Arcturus and Spica
Calibration Stars: Antares, Deneb, and Altair

My observation plan was to observe a few globular clusters. I was looking for targets to possibly image over the weekend. The sky was very clear, I don’t think we have had skies this clear since early spring.

Since I had to get up early the next morning I did not get to spend as much time out as I would have liked. I spent most of the session observing M13 and M92. I also took a quick look at M4, M5, and M80.

From my observing notes:

Messier 13 (M13), the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, was the first on my list/plan. Was able to see the cluster with the 22mm Panoptic in the C6 and I was able to resolve individual stars on the outer area of the cluster. The heart of the cluster was fuzzy without detail. At 9mm I could resolve individual stars closer to the center of the cluster and the 7mm Nagler showed even greater detail of what appears to be 100s if not thousands of stars.

With the 7mm Nagler in the AT66 the view was similar to the 9mm in the C6. A wider area but good contrast and I was able to see individual stars close to the center of the globular. I tried the 4mm Radian but had a hard time focusing. The scope was pointing nearly straight up which caused the Crayford focuser on the AT66 to slip from the weight of the eye piece – no issued with 7mm Nagler (which is considerably lighter). There is a tension adjustment on the focuser but it requires a small allen wrench and I did not want to fiddle with it in the dark.

Messier 92 (M92) – With the 7mm in the C6 I was able to resolve individual stars. This globular cluster seems much more compact. More stars in a smaller area. Did not take up as much of the FOV in the 7mm eye piece as M13.

I got a quick view of M4, M5, and M80 with the 9mm Nagler and the C6. I did not spend the same amount of time on these that I did on M13 and M92. The one note that I did make about M4 was that it appeared to not contain as many stars as M13 and M92.

I had great views of each of these globulars and I think M4, M5, and M80 will be on my list of targets for imaging this weekend.

Before ending the session I took a quick look at Saturn. The planet was much lower in the sky, near the horizon, so I did not have the same issue with the 4mm Radian slipping in the AT66. I could easily resolve the ring shadow where it crossed the planet. The 4mm in the C6 also allowed me to see some good detail.

Check this out, if you look close you can see the sun light reflecting off the rain drops.

This rain is suppose to bring us some cooler temperatures and lower humidity for the next several days. Look likes this weekend is going to be a good one for observing and imaging.

Alignment Stars: Spica and Arcturus
Calibration Stars: Vega and Antares

Did not really plan out my session. Even though I had a nap earlier in the day I was still kind of tired from being out in the morning, but I did not want to let the clear sky go to waste.

From my observing notes:

Messier 13 – The Great Cluster in Hercules – M13 is a globular cluster located in the constellation Hercules, I had to work a bit to get good focus using the 9mm in the C6. Once I was able to get focus it was very easy to resolve the individual stars outside of the clusters center. Also, able to resolve well with the 22mm. Focus was easier to obtain with the 22mm. While focusing on M13 with the 9mm Nagler I did notice a “mirror shift”, this is the first time I have experienced this in any of my scopes (not saying it has not happened before, this is just the first time I have noticed it).

I also observed M5, M10, M92, and M12. Messier 12 was the hardest of these to resolve.

Saturn looked very nice with the 9mm. The shadow of the planet’s rings were easily seen on the planet’s surface. The rings are still nearly edge on so there was no real detail to be seen. Three of Saturn’s moons were easily visible. I looked up the planet in Stellarium to figure out which moons we were seeing and they were Rhea, Tethys, and Titan. I am not very good a sketching but I did draw a small sketch of the moons locations so I could look it up.

The kids came out for a bit to look at Saturn , Mars, and the Moon. My son Johnathan stay out with me for most of the time I was out, which was cool since he is generally not into it.

We tried to look at M81 and M82 but both of these appeared as just smudges. M81 had a bright center but no detail and M82 showed no detail, just a smudge of faint light. I am not sure if it was because of the amount of light pollution or if these targets are just better suited for the 8″ scope. I have observed both of these with good detail in the 8″.

Around 11:30 we were over the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes so we called it a night.

Alignment Stars: Arcturus and Vega
Calibration Star: Enif

From my observing notes:

I started out observing Messier 11. This open cluster looked great in the C6 with the 22mm Panoptic. Very easy to see individual stars in the tight cluster. One bright yellow star just off center of the cluster.

Then I turned to Messier 39, another open cluster. This cluster filled the 25mm Plossl eye piece in the AT66 also looked good with the 22mm in the C6. Because of the size I actually liked the wider field of view the 66 gave better.

I viewed several other open cluster – M18, M22, M23, M28, M26, and NGC6633. When observing Messier 28 (M28) I was not able to resolve individual stars even with the 9mm, it just appear to be a faint cloud. I think the humid air and the fair amount of light pollution to the south was probably the reason for the less than spectacular views in the 9mm. NGC6633 was another cluster that really looked great in the AT66 with the 25mm Plossl, the cluster just filled the field of view.

Jupiter was easy to spot. The dark northern gas band was very easy to resolve with the 22mm and 9mm in the C6 (the southern band is missing) and the 4 Galilean moons were clearly visible in all eye pieces and all scopes. The 22mm Panoptic gave me the best views, the seeing was just not good enough for the magnification of the 9mm. Easy to see the 4 moons in the AT66, but no detail on the planet. I observed Jupiter on into sunrise, it was still easily visible in the scope even as the sun began to peek over the horizon.

When the star Capella rose to the north east I started searching the north east for Comet 2009/R1 (McNaught) with binoculars. I was not able to successfully locate the comet with my binoculars.

Very heavy morning dew ended the viewing, I was pretty surprised that I did not have more problems with dew. There was a light dew on the scope but the corrector remained fairly clear with just the dew shield. I am looking forward to getting my dew heater so that my troubles with dew will become a thing of the past.

I think Jupiter would have been visible even in full sun light.