Cloudy skies returned on Wednesday, 7 March 2018. Thursday morning, 8 March, a coyote came to visit:

Had some light rain (0.02") Saturday evening, 10 March. There was some rain Sunday morning, 11 March, but the rain gauge amount (0.005") was probably inaccurate as the gauge had been damaged (by a large bird most likely). Here I am doing a repair:

A rock squirrel came to visit Monday morning, 12 March:

Click or tap on image for larger version

Venus and Mercury and some clouds after sunset made a pretty sight:

Click or tap on image for larger version

Two squirrels came to visit Tuesday morning, 13 March:

Click or tap on image for larger version

Cloudy skies continued until Thursday, 15 March. That evening I attended a "Family Reading Night" at Oracle Mountain Vista School. You can read about the event and the 4th graders who gave talks on Light Pollution on the Oracle Dark Skies Committee web site. After I returned home I opened the observatory.

Open: Thursday, 15 March 2018, 1959 MST Temperature: 59°F

Session: 1212 Conditions: Clear, breezy

Equipment Used:
12" f/8 LX600 w/StarLock
2" 24mm UWA eyepiece

Camera:
D850 DSLR

2005 MST: LX600 ON, StarLock OFF, High Precision OFF.

SYNCed the AutoStar on the star Regulus.

Viewed the galaxy NGC3190, 102X. The fainter galaxy NGC3187 was also visible in the same field-of-view.

I then began preparing to do some galaxy imaging. I first checked the framing for NGC3190 and other galaxies for the 12" telescope and D850 DSLR using the iOS app AstroAid. It looked good so I mounted the DSLR at prime focus. Set the focus with a Bahtinov Mask using the star Regulus.

2030 MST: StarLock ON.

This is a StarLock autoguided, 5 minutes, ISO 6400, White Balance 3570K image of NGC3190 and several other galaxies:

Mouseover or tap on image for labels

I then slewed to "Sarah's Galaxy", NGC3628, for this StarLock autoguided, 5 minutes, ISO 3200, White Balance 3570K image:

I also did some test exposures at ISO 400 and ISO 6400 to compare post-processing results (using Adobe Lightroom). ISO 3200 had the best noise reduction vs ISO 400 and ISO 6400. I plan to do more Deep Sky Object (DSO) imaging at ISO 3200 using the D850 vs the ISO 6400 I used for most DSO images with the D7200 and D7000 DSLRs. I am still learning the capabilities of the new Nikon D850 DSLR but I continue to be impressed by it.

2105 MST: StarLock OFF.

Viewed NGC3628 (Sarah's Galaxy), 102X.

2122 MST: LX600 OFF.

Close: Thursday, 15 March 2018, 2132 MST Temperature: 50°F

Session Length: 1h 33m Conditions: Clear

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