Viewing

Managed to sneak a little star viewing in last night before the skies gave way to Isabel.

Quite a clear and star filled night. The sun is starting to set earlier and the moon is rising later. Still, this is New England and Fall means fog filled nights...the only question is when.

So far I've been pretty much winging it with the telescope, viewing Mars, Jupiter, the Moon, and various bright stars or clusters. And, oddly enough, C5 jumbo jets refueling as they fly overhead. Last night I saw two of them within an hour's viewing along with another flight of 3 or 4 large jets. Swinging a telescope across the night sky to catch a jet racing overhead is very difficult so don't expect photos anytime soon. It's an odd sight.

After chasing the jets across the sky (I'm not sure why I feel compelled to do this...) I settled down to try and view something new. Last week I downloaded the demo version of Starry Night for OSX and have been playing around with it. Nicely done program, btw. Almost straight overhead it indicates that there's this reddish blob called the North American Nebula, but for the life of me I can't find it. The program says a Nebula filter will "help greatly," whatever that is.

After trying again last night I set my sites on the Andromeda Galaxy. It took a little while to orient the scope, but I finally found it. It's off to the right of Cassiopeia, further than I thought it would be. My sky navigation technique so far has been to point in the general area and then try to move in slow steps to find something. It's tough, since the viewfinder/lens show things backwards and/or upside down. Can't warp my mind into thinking that way yet. It's time to study up on positioning using altitude and azimuth.

At about 9:30 I turned to Mars for a peak. It is very bright but so were the surroundings. At first I thought the telescope was fogging up, then I looked up at the sky and saw that the fog was moving in over the red planet. You'll have to visit 101-365 for fresh Mars photos.

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