Great night of viewing Saturn, Jupiter, Mars & Messiers!
Well, my neighbor Steve & I set up our telescopes at the Marine City baseball field by the water tower last night.
The area was much darker but I had some minor issues with my laptop so I made a few videos then stacked each into the images shown.
But the best part of the evening was when I put the camera away.
Steve & I were able to really explore the constellation Sagittarius while gazing at the Milky Way high above stretching South.
We went on a major Messier object hunt & saw quite a few.
Messier objects were cataloged & named by Charles Messier & his in the late 1700's.
Messier objects consists of galaxies, globular & open star clusters & planetary nebula.
I saw the following: M5, M11,M17 (Swan Nebula), M4, M53, M14, M10, M12 & M80.
Iwas using my Celestron Nexstar 127 SLT with the Neximage 5 camera.
The only EP I used was the Omni 32mm & Steve's Erfle 16.7 wide field.
The best part is I started a Messier 30 award for Astronomy Forum last October & only needed to find four more, which I easily accomplished last night!
I'll finally be preparing the proper list for that award & submitting it soon.
I'll be taking a break this week as I need to research more settings in the camera & stacking software, plus Regina will have my head if I pop outside another all nighter! The images are getting better but need to crunch more numbers.
Many thanks & appreciation to everyone for their kind comments.
jup b 5-31-14_pipp.jpgjup d 5-31-14_pipp.jpgmars b 5-31-14_pipp.jpgmars c 5-31-14_pipp.jpgsat b 5-31-14_pipp.jpg
Celestron NexStar 127 SLT, Celestron, NexImage 5, AZ Heated Dew Shield, Celestron Omni 6mm, 9mm,12mm, 15mm, 32mm & 2x Barlow, 2x-3x ES Barlow, AO 3x Barlow, HPS focal reducer, HP IR Cut filter, Meade 4000 Variable Polarizer, WO Dura Bright Diagonal, Erect Diagonal, #80A Blue Filter, Red-Green-Yellow Filters, Astro Cards-Deep Sky, 1950 Atlas Borealis, Phillips Planisphere, Phillips Moon Map, The Edmund Sky Guide, Time In Astronomy,Cambridge Star Atlas, Norton's Star Atlas. Cargeena 2 Astronomy on Facebook