The weather has not cooperated for a while, and even tonight it wasn’t so great–look how late I stayed up looking for reasonable observing, though not great observing.  I have yet to try the new eyepiece for attaching my camera to my scope, but did binocular observations instead.  I re-did M42 and M45, and added [...]

I could see the Milky Way in Cygnus (near the zenith) at 1:30am last night–that is rare for south Bowie.
I posed some new observations:
Before Midnight
After Midnight

Tonight, it was predicted to be a good observing night. In reality, it was a bit hazy in Bowie, but I still sketched M15 (that’s #27 out of 50 for my Binocular Messier Certificate I am trying for). It is a globular cluster about 33,600 light years away, 175 light years in diameter, [...]

so I went out after midnight (and didn’t get out of bed till 3pm today!) with binoculars and lounge chair and clipboard. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 thought I’d look through the telesocpe tonight, as the Clear Sky Clock seemed to be in my favor. But–it was so hazy I could see very little. I tried something “easy” (M13), but couldn’t find it. So I used my binoculars….I couldn’t find it there either! It has to be [...]