Monday, May 30, 2016

5/29/2016 SJAA RDCO Private Viewing

Weather has been bad since last year. Finally we have a relative clear weekend.
There are about 20+ scopes there and most of them doing visual.

I take my FC-100 out the first time.
I setup close to Ryan (my friend) who has a very nice 10" Dob.


This is also the first time I use DSC (digital setting circle).
It is like cheating as star-hopping is no need now.
I look at the following objects from 9:30pm to 12:00am.
M3
M53
M64
M80
M107
M84
M86
M87
M88
M91
M100
M85
M59
M60
M58
M90
M89
M49
M61
M99
M98
M51
M63
M94
M101
M106
M4
M9
M12
M10
M5
NCG4762
M19
M62
M57
M56
M29


There is also a 8inch refractor there !!

The sky was OK dark but not very transparent.
I am not sure if I trust the SQM reading from my iPhone.
The milky way is not visible...


Sunday, May 8, 2016

First Time at Montebello (M101)

First time to try this local site (Montebello) close to Stanford. About 45min door-to-door from my house. (http://old.observers.org/sites/) The site is not as dark as BLM but it is good enough for me. I decide to go this place more often for narrow-band imaging.

Spent most of the time testing the FSQ-85 + STT-8300. Still struggle on the SGP auto focusing.
The star shape at the corners are not perfect too. This makes me thinking to upgrade to FSQ-106...

Below is one shot of 30min Ha of M101.