Exploring the Suffolk Virginia Night Sky – Astronomy, Astrophotography, Telescopes, EAA – Planets and Stars and Nebula and Galaxies – Looking, Learning, Sharing… Let's see what we can see…
Sky-Watcher USA Target of the Month Challenge
Wow! I did not realize it had been so long. I have not gathered any light through the scope in nearly 2 months. Glad we got a nice clear night to change that. I decided to try for Hickson 44 which is…
Clear, cold (upper 20s F), night. Just a little sliver of the 15% waxing Crescent Moon in the SW sky. I uncovered the AT66ED to capture the March Sky-Watcher USA TOTM, LDN 1622 or the Boogeyman Nebula. The dark nebula LDN 1622…
The forecast was calling for a clear sky for most of the night so I set things up to capture the SkywatcherUSA TOTM for February 2025, LBN 777 the Baby Eagle Nebula or Vulture Head Nebula. The night started off clear, cool,…
Another beautiful clear night. A bit cold with temperatures dropping down in the low 30s once the Sun set, but it did not seem to be as damp out as the night before. The Moon was just a small sliver and set…
The forecast for the night was not great, but it was fairly clear just before dark. The temperature was in the mid-70s and the humidity was not quite as bad as it has been. I uncovered the scope hoping to capture a…
Received a nice surprise in the mail today… the SkyWatcher USA Target of the Month (TOTM) 2024 25th anniversary patch. Actually got a pair of patches and a neat deck of cards. My TOTM submission can be found here. This month’s TOTM…
It’s been a bit since we have had a nice Moonless clear sky. Monday night, 3/11/2024, was a very nice night for looking up. Cool, but not too cold, with temperatures in the mid-to-low 40s. Very clear, no Moon, and only a…
A nice cool and very clear Moonless night. I was able to capture a little more than 3 1/2 hours of light from the planetary nebulas PK 136+05 and PN G136.1+04.9. The planetary nebula PK 136+05, aka Hechathorn-Fesen-Gull 1 of HFG1, is…
Clear and cold night with no Moon! Great night to collect some light from Hechathorn-Fesen-Gull 1 (aka HFG1 or PK 136+05) a planetary nebula located in the constellation of Cassiopeia. HFG1 is the SkyWatcherUSA Target of the Month (TOTM) for February 2024….
There are countless (thousands, 10s of thousands, millions, billions) objects in the night sky. There are many object catalogs (NGC, Messier, IC, Caldwell, Barnard, LBN, PGC, UGC, Abell, etc…). Not all of these objects and catalogs are available in every planetarium program,…