Wednesday evening, 10 May 2023, was very windy and the sky was very hazy. That night I attended a follow-up meeting to re-form the Oracle Dark Skies Committee. Before the meeting started I was presented with this shirt.

Open: Thursday, 11 May 2023, 1836 MST Temperature: 74°F

Session: 1866 Conditions: Clear, very hazy, breezy

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

Camera:
D850 DSLR

1844 MST: Dome OFF.

1848-1909 MST: Relaxed on the observatory patio bench.

1916 MST: Sunset. Calm now.

1917 MST: LX600 ON, StarLock OFF, High Precision OFF.

Viewed Venus, 102X and 203X. Then checked alignment of both finderscopes for tonight's excellent pass of the International Space Station (ISS). Updated the AutoStar TLE for the ISS. Prepared the D850 DSLR for imaging.

1929 MST: Relaxed on the bench to watch the stars come out.

1938 MST: Back in the observatory as I decided to image Venus. Mounted the D850 DSLR at prime focus + 2X Powermate. Took a 30 seconds 1080p, 60fps, video at 1/5000sec, ISO 3200. This is one frame from that video and a stack of 1357 video frames.

1958 MST: Back to the bench.

2015 MST: Back in the observatory.

2030 MST: With the D850 DSLR mounted at prime focus + 2X Powermate, I focused on the star Regulus and locked the 12" mirror. I was now ready for the start of the ISS pass (2043 MST). Unfortunately, I missed the start of the pass and so tracking was not very good. I did a 3m 15s video recording, 1080p, 60fps, 1/5000sec, ISO 3200. Here are images (cropped) of the ISS taken from four video frames near mid-pass.

I then mounted the D850 DSLR at prime focus, focused on Regulus, and locked the mirror.

2056 MST: High Precision ON.

Slewed to NGC3277 (galaxy) to begin imaging of some Herschel 400 galaxies.

2057 MST: StarLock ON.

Began imaging NGC3277 (galaxy), StarLock autoguided. Unfortunately, seeing was very bad and autoguiding was very erratic. I was able to only get a 1 minute, ISO 3200, exposure of NGC3277.

Due to the poor seeing I aborted longer exposures and gave up imaging for this session.

2115 MST: LX600 OFF.

2119 MST: Dome ON.

Close: Thursday, 11 May 2023, 2128 MST Temperature: 57°F

Session Length: 2h 52m Conditions: Clear, hazy

---

Comments are welcome using Email. Twitter users can use the button below to tweet this report to their followers. Thanks.

Tweet

---

Previous report

Cassiopeia Observatory Home Page