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| Crepuscular rays at the marsh. |
Okay, so my new location north of Spring Bay has become my go-to. More so than the spot sanctioned by the Astronomy club. Darker and much more isolated, not to mention a much shorter commute.
In fact, I blew off the monthly meeting on 10/2 because of ideal conditions after a long cloudy and/or moonlit streak. It was a new moon and totally clear, so a no-brainer on that.
As an experiment, I managed a 4-minute exposure of the Milky Way from my new spot and then uploaded the picture to Astrometry The site superimposes constellations on the shots you upload. Results are below.
On 15 October, my friend Ken and I went to the marsh to try and see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. The window to do so was closing fast and the weather was favorable. Ken brought his Orion 130mm along and we got it setup next to my AP-8. A farmer was finishing up his bean harvest just across the dirt road, but the dust managed to stay away.
About 90 minutes into our visit, we stumbled on the comet. This is my first comet sighting since starting the hobby, so this was special. I remember Hale-Bopp in the 90s, which stuck around forever. And I vaguely remember Kohoutek in the 70s, but that fizzled out.
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| A 4-minute exposure |
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| Close-up is kind of interesting, but lacks the tail |
All in all, the comet was exciting, but it won't go down in history as a dazzler. Still, it was cool to finally get one after searching these past few years.
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I returned to the site on 23 October. I've wanted to capture Neptune so I can finish my Solar System Challenge. I may have spotted it, but it is so far away and rather indistinct. I'm planning another session around the end of this month so maybe I can strike paydirt then. But it was a beautiful night, with the crepuscular rays at sunset very striking (see the photo at top).
I did manage to capture M11, the Wild Duck cluster:
I have a spreadsheet listing all the Messier objects and I tried to collect a few more, but had no luck.
A big part of that is the encroaching winter cold coming on. That last night I was out, the temperature dropped from 62 to 48. It became difficult to just hold my pencil enough to enter log entries. So I've been reading up on hand warmers and how to dress more effectively when observing in cold weather.
November is proving to be a very grey and gloomy month. But I've sketched out a planner for when we reach 3rd quarter and on to the new moon. I'll just need clear skies and warmer clothes.
UPDATE: 12/1/24
Finally found something where I can enter data on my PC and not need PDF software. Observation Logs is a Java-based application where I can enter the data on equipment, sites, observations and targets and then export the data into a web-based report. It's nice to do that without needing to manipulate PDF software.
Everything before moving back to Illinois is still in the old format, while everything since will go into OL.
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