December 6th, 2020 Moon

 

Clusters and Star fields from November 27th

 

Messier 82: The Cigar Galaxy on Thanksgiving 2020

 

Thanksgiving morning photo from my backyard observatory (Pleasant Hill, October 26, 2020). Messier 82 (also known as NGC 3034, Cigar Galaxy or M82) is a starburst galaxy approximately 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. A member of the M81 Group, it is about five times more luminous than the whole Milky Way and has a center one hundred times more luminous than our galaxy's center.

Messier 50: the Heart Shaped Cluster

Messier 50 
Pleasant Hill, CA 11/7/20

Messier 50 (M50), nicknamed the Heart-Shaped Cluster, is a large, bright open cluster located in the constellation Monoceros. The cluster has an apparent magnitude of 5.9 and lies at an approximate distance of 3,200 light years from Earth.

The Halloween Blue Moon 2020

It doesn’t happy very often... a blue moon on October 31st. It hasn’t happened since 1944 and won’t happen again until 2039. Great viewing conditions in the early morning hours of Halloween 2020. 

SpaceX Starship SN8 Get's Nose Cone, Ready for 15km Test Flight

Starship prototype SN8 got its nose cone today in preparation for its upcoming 15km test flight which will feature 3 raptor engines configured together for the first time. With this exciting news, the following felt appropriate...

Starship --> Enterprise 
(Starship photo cred: Spadre.com)

Go here for more information about the test flight coming up likely in the next week or two.

Orion Nebula on October 10th, 2020

 

Lightning Storm of the Decade?

Pleasant Hill is getting smothered by a heat wave that is creating some funky weather akin to a nasty humid Florida summer afternoon. You hope the sky gods clear the clouds for a great nice of imaging the universe, but I'll gladly accept a savage lightning storm over Mount Diablo. 

Check these out... 

Down Year for the Perseids, but Mars Looked Good

The Perseids meteor was less than stellar this year, but Mars looked good rising from the east. Mars will be at its closest point to earth in October (about 36 million miles away). Its close proximity is the reason for the summer Mars mission launches. This window of opportunity happens once every 2 years.

In Search of Dark Skies...

 

Andromeda (M31) From Dark Skies in Central Oregon

Slewing your Telescope using an XBOX or other game Controller

How to configure a video gamer pad to control Celestron telescopes. From what I read not every line of Celestron scopes are supported, but the more advanced lines are.

Here is a helpful thread from CloudyNights... 

Looking at my Gamepad Configuration.. (see below) there are a few things that need to be explained.

 

Slew RA/Azm: - Straight forward.

Slew Dec/Alt: - Straight forward.

 

RA/Azm Activate: I think that think might default to "Hold to enable slewing" and I have reversed it to "Hold to disable slewing".

Dec/Alt Activate: I think that think might default to "Hold to enable slewing" and I have reversed it to "Hold to disable slewing".

These 2 settings to provide pure RA or Dec slewing on an EQ mount. This is not so important on an Alt/Azm mount. I have allowed simultaneous Alt and Azm input.

 

High Speed Activate: I have chosen the "B" button and "Hold = Fast, Release = Slow". I think that it may default to "Hold = Slow, Release = Fast".

 

EDIT: Actually, I think that it may default to "Hold = Fast, Release = Slow" and that the slow speed may be not so obvious when testing.

 

I prefer "Hold = Fast, Release = Slow" so that I don't accidently get fast slewing during final centering of a target.

 

BTW. In the Preview window, the difference between RumblePad mode and Normal mode can be demonstrated.

Attached Thumbnails

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Dumbbell Nebula from the Driveway

Dumbbell Nebula (M27) 
Pleasant Hill, CA
June 17, 2020

Taken with Celestron Nexstar 8se, Canon T3i, and a bunch of other random crap purchased on Amazon. Single shot, 15 second exposure, ISO 3200