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
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,…
Another very cold and clear night so I took the opportunity to capture some more light from the Dolphin Head Nebula (Sh2-308/LBN 1052) I was able to add just over an hour and half to the just over an hour and a…
Clear and cold… very cold. I uncovered the scope a in the late afternoon. One thing about the cold is it doesn’t take long for the camera to cool down 🙂 After dark I ran the Ekos Auto Focus and Polar Alignment….
Last night was another cold clear night. I continued capturing data of the nebula LBN 762, also known as the Drunken Dragon Nebula. This nebula is an emission nebula located in the constellation of Aries. It is also the Skywatcher USA Target…
A couple nights ago I was tinkering around with the telescope and broadcasting on the Night Skies Network. Dave from West Virginia joined the broadcast and mentioned a dark nebula, LBN 762, and this target was the SkywatcherUSA Target of the Month…