Friday night, 10 February 2023, was cloudy and windy. Cloudy nights continued. Sunday morning, 12 February, with rain and snow in the forecast for the coming week, I put the Dome Cover ON. A very brief snow shower arrived Monday morning, 13 February.

Periods of rain and snow continued Monday afternoon.

Monday's total precipitation was 0.35". Tuesday, 14 February, was very windy and cloudy. Early Wednesday morning, 15 February, received 3" of snow (precip total 0.14").

Wednesday night I attended the special book launch celebration for The Sky at Night by Tim Hunter, co-founder of the International Dark-Sky Assocation. David Levy introduced Tim and used his Questar telescope after the talks.

The sky was clear on Thursday, 16 February. That afternoon I removed the Dome Cover.

Open: Thursday, 16 February 2023, 1825 MST Temperature: 38°F

Session: 1834 Conditions: Mostly clear, breezy

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

Camera:
D850 DSLR

1829 MST: LX600 ON, StarLock OFF, High Precision OFF.

Viewed Venus, Jupiter, and Mars, 102X

Slewed to NGC1501 (planetary nebula). It would be my first Herschel 400 Catalog object to be imaged this session. Then I prepared the D850 DSLR for imaging.

1850 MST: High Precision ON.

NGC1501 was not yet visible in the twilight sky.

1901 MST: NGC1501 was now faintly visible, 102X.

Mounted the D850 DSLR at prime focus, focused on the star Capella, and locked the 12" primary mirror.

1911 MST: StarLock ON.

Took the following StarLock autoguided images, 1 minute exposure, ISO 3200, White Balance 4550K.

NGC1501 (planetary nebula)


NGC1535 (planetary nebula)


NGC1788 (nebula)


NGC1980 (open star cluster)


NGC1999 (nebula)

1950 MST: Dome OFF.

Took this StarLock autoguided image, 1 minute exposure, ISO 3200, White Balance 4550K.

NGC1931 (nebula)

1956 MST: StarLock OFF.

2000 MST: Dome ON.

Viewed M42 (Orion Nebula), 102X.

2006 MST: LX600 OFF.

2015 MST: Took a Sky Quality reading and reported the result to Globe at Night.

Close: Thursday, 16 February 2023, 2020 MST Temperature: 36°F

Session Length: 1h 55m Conditions: Clear, breezy, SQM 20.78

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