It was dark when we left the house and started walking to work yesterday morning at 5:15. Orion stood clear and bright in the southern sky, chiding me for not taking advantage of the clear sky. Over to the west, huddled together and whispering in muted tones the Pleiades all but ignored us. Stars...harrumph.
As we passed the woods bordering our house and hit the corn fields the sky opened up like a jewelry box. A little glow on the northern edge from the city of Lebanon, most likely car dealers, and perhaps a slight hint of glow to the east from the distant sunrise. The air was damp and cool. We live on a small hill and the perpetual fall fog banks that engulf the Connecticut and Mascoma river valleys each night lap at our shores but usually leave the sky alone.
Walking down the hill it became brighter and harder to see stars as more of the houses fought back night with the cold glare of flood lights. Passing cars (yes, at 5am) took care of any last bit of night vision. We waded down into the fog and the sky was obliterated by the time we got to the bottom of the hill. The rest of the walk was in foggy darkness, Zeke snuffling while I pondered code and networks and frogs in ponds.
This morning we woke at four. Not a good trend to get started on. Faith had setup the coffee maker the night before so I started it up and hauled the telescope onto the deck while it gurgled. Orion was waiting and there, in his scabbard, I photographed M42, the Orion nebula.
I'm still grappling with a good means to focus the telescope once the camera is mounted and blocking the view. Maybe I can hook the camera to a laptop (or TV) and get a larger view? As it was I took a couple dozen shots and this is the best of the lot. Probably need some sort of filter to capture the wisps properly.
Swung the scope around to check out something below Cassiopeia. Well, it was below the other night but this time of morning Cassiopeia had flipped over a bit and I had to re-orientate. It's a fuzzy spot to the naked eye and in the telescope it shows up as a double star cluster. Not sure what it is yet, have to look it up.
Before heading off to work I swung back over to M42 and put in the 10mm with barlow for a zoomed in look. The knot of stars in the photo opened up nicely.
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