Cloud Cover Ruins the Day

I was planning to take pictures of the sun everyday this week, but I was spoiled by clouds all day. Here is a short time-lapse I made with an iOS app.

A Sun and Moon: July 29, 2012

I took some more pictures of the sun and moon today. I'm still trying to get the hang of processing the sun in Photoshop. I followed a tutorial on Stargazer's Lounge forum, I like the detail of it but I want to improve the color. The exposure is 1/1250 sec, ISO 200. I'm happy with the moon picture. I was able to add some more contrast as the phase gets closer to full. It is a little less exposed than last night's picture, especially around the limb. I originally took 10 shots, hoping to stack in Registax. I couldn't get them aligned right so I'll have to work on that. Exposure was 1/800 sec, ISO 200. Both images were single shots. I'm looking forward to taking some more pictures the next few days, especially of the sun, and make a sunspot evolution GIF animation.

And I highly encourage you to watch and support this upcoming documentary, Fight for Space.

Waxing Gibbous Moon (80%) July 28, 2012

I've been busy the past couple weeks so I haven't really had any time to bring the 'scope out. I decided to get some Lunar shots tonight because there were some clouds. I took a quick look at Saturn too. Picture was single shot, 1/800 sec., ISO 200. Processed in Photoshop.

I saw the Milky Way for the first time!

Tonight was amazing! I saw the Milky Way for the first time ever! I went out at 9:45pm with a lawn chair. I looked up for about 20 minutes for my eyes to get dark adapted. Then I challenged myself to find the faintest magnitude star I could see. After a few minutes of looking, I found a magnitude 5.3 star near Vega. Surprised, I kept looking up. Then I saw the faint glow of the spiral arm of our galaxy. It was incredible! It started at Deneb, around 40-45* high, and stretched across the southern sky above Altair. There were noticeably bright patches below Deneb, and to the right of Altair. I did my best blocking the nearby street light from entering my eyes. I stared up at it for a long time. When I was ready to call it a night because the moon was rising, I got up and saw the distinct glow of the Milky Way stretch across the sky from about 40* up. It was probably one of the clearest and best nights I have seen, and I was stunned that I could see the Milky Way from an orange zone in the suburbs. 

Observing Report: Grazing through the Milky Way Part 1

Tonight was a good night grazing through the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. I went out at 9:45pm, with good seeing. Unfortunately with it being the middle of summer, we are limited to very little true darkness. This combined with my eyes not being properly dark adapted resulted in a disappointing naked-eye limiting magnitude. I swung over to Saturn first, a spectacular view. Then I started some deep-sky observing. I found M71, a globular cluster first. It was underwhelming compared to some of the other globs out there. Next was M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. It was big, bright, and nice looking. There was more contrast at 150x, and I could make out the dumbbell shape to it. On to M56, another globular like M71. I could barely resolve stars with averted vision. M57 wasn’t new, but looked great. I then headed to open cluster M29. It was surrounded by a dense region of stars, which made it hard to distinguish. I eventually confirmed it. M39 was another open cluster; bright and loose. It looked good in the finder scope. I wrapped up the night with M11, an amazing, dense open cluster. This rich cluster was what I was use to from the winter skies. The moon started to climb higher above the horizon so I called it a night at 10:30pm. I found 6 new Messier objects, bringing my total up to 52/110! (I did not take these pictures)

M11

M27