Finally, it was clear enough to see something. Still, there were lots of clouds around. I used binoculars [...]

It’s been cloudy and rainy (except for a few brief moments of sunshine) for almost a week now! I’m sure there are stars up there somewhere, but I can see no evidence from here. It’s times like this that “blimp telescope” idea sounds good. So… here is my sketch of M51 through [...]

Deneb, or Alpha Cygni is one of the three stars of the summer triangle and is the “top” of the northern cross. Because Cygnus is in the Milky Way, you see a rich starfield in binoculars–the drawing doesn’t begin to do justice to the Deneb starfield, especially under a dark sky. Many stars [...]

Sometimes the binoculars give a better view than the telescope. That is true with the asterism known as the Coathanger. In the telescope image, some stars are cut off by the narrow field of view, but the whole asterism appears in binoculars. Here is an older observation of Collinder 399, the Coathanger, [...]

I removed the ISP-provided images decorating the pages and replaced them with my own. On the main page, you will see my telescope (edited from a picture taken from a star party with GIMP) replacing the crescent moon. On other pages, you will see a selection of my sketch of Pleiades replacing the [...]

The easiest way to find the Beehive cluster (M44) this year is to find Saturn, as the constellation it is in (Cancer) is very dim. If you aim your binoculars at Saturn and move a little left, you will see a collection of stars much like a swarm of bees. The field of [...]

The sky is so hazy I cannot even see bright M13 in binoculars. So, here is an older observation. M81 is Bode’s Galaxy, a spiral. M82 is the Cigar Galaxy, an irregular that is dimmer than M81. The two are not just in the same place in the sky, they are [...]

Tonight is not a good observation night. Still, I can draw practice sketches from the Starry Night software. Here is Pleiades, one of the prettiest open clusters in the sky. The practice sketches now go on their own page too.
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When the moon is not up and the weather is reasonable, we have star parties at one of our two viewing sites. Last night, we went to Alpha Ridge park. There were some clouds, but still much was viewable. I saw Mercury for the first time in my scope and in binoculars, [...]

I added another picture I had taken yesterday to the page of sky photos. This time, I used Gimp a little to enhance the stars and darken the skyglow. Antares now looks reddish-yellow. Scorpius is low where I live and in binoculars, Anteres is a boiling mass of changing colors. I [...]