My solar observing season tends to run from about February to the end of October. As I’ve noted before the Sun is too low to clear the roofs of the surrounding houses. For the last few seasons I’ve been sketching the view of the solar disc through my Coronado PST (Personal Solar Telescope) and occasionally augmenting that with white light details of Active Regions (ARs). I thought it might be interesting to compare the views from this time of year.

Previously most of my lunar observing had been limited to the spectacular array of impact craters. Yet most of these contain details that passed me by until I was told to really look, and they only scratch the surface (so to speak) of what the Moon has to offer. Now I’ve surveyed 90% of the sights listed in the Lunar 100 list, what were the highlights? Discovering Lunar domes and dark halo craters has lead me to consider lunar vulcanism more closely.

Back in February I noted that most of the remaining Messier Objects were too low to be seen from my back garden. Well I managed to fit an observing session in during one of our Society meetings to observe the Perseid meteors this August. As it turned out it was cloudy most of the time, so very few meteors were seen, but during the early part of the night, before the Moon rose, I stuck my 10×50 binoculars on their monopod and pointed them low to the South in the direction of Sagittarius.

As the days of British Summer Time get longer a compensation for me is that the Sun is rising high enough to be visible again from my northwest facing garden. I love my solar observing in both the Hydrogen Alpha (Hα) wavelength of the Balmer series, using a Coronado Personal Solar Telescope (PST), and with a normal telescope in white light, but with a Herschel Wedge removing around 99% of the available light for safe observing.

And now I’ve forgotten to post through March… which is a shame because it was a huge improvement over February. Not only a big uptick in the quantity of observing opportunities, but lots of variety in my observing diet too. Both this month and the last have started with some Lunar observing. I’m starting to take this increasingly seriously just as the Moon is due to sink lower in my sky until it disappears behind the house until Autumn… still you have to start sometime, and I’ve decided now with the Charles Wood’s Lunar 100.

You may remember way back in 2014 I wrote about Charles Messier and his list of comet-like objects. I also mentioned that I’d started tracking them down with binoculars, and that was a while ago, so what’s happened since? I’m still working to my usual leisurely pace, but I’ve collected good observations of 60 of them now. This year would be a great time to finish this project since it’s the 200th anniversary of Charles’ death.

As a follow up to the post on starting out observing variable stars I thought I’d talk about my journey. I started variable star observing about four years ago with the naked eye and the 10-Star tutorial. I soon moved on to binocular variables, to which I’ve added a smattering of telescopic Mira variables now. As you can see below, fuelled with enthusiasm soon clocked up 200, receiving a certificate from the AAVSO for my first 100, which was unexpected.

Way back in at the beginning of 2014 I wrote about remote imaging. I know, not very analogue, but my reasoning is that using robotic telescopes wouldn’t cost me valuable observing time under clear night skies.

In this post I want to talk about how this works in practice and whether astro-imaging and astro-photography are really the same thing. I learned a bit about which one interests me the most…

If you’ve read the “about me” page you’ll know that I’m a fan of variable stars. Most of my astronomy colleagues think it’s a bit weird, but I love to test the ability of my eyes to judge brightness and follow the changes in the 30 stars on my regular programme. I now use my naked eye, binoculars and a telescope to observe variables, but I didn’t start that way…

I’ve become a little obsessed with observing this particular supernova remnant. I think it’s because it can show lots of nebulous goodness under less than perfect skies and with less aperture than some: it’s a realistic target.

That said, it’s not straightforward with a light polluted sky, but mid-summer is the best time to try with Cygnus right overhead, and that’s what I do every year.

I’ll admit to being a little late with this post, but I hope you’ll bear with me since this tale was certainly an observing highlight of 2016. Just imagine that it’s August and time to start my annual Veil Nebula hunt…

It was the 8th January 2017. The morning had been lovely with sunshine in place of the predicted fog! It didn’t last. As the afternoon wore on the clouds gathered and by nightfall not only covered the sky but had delivered a persistent drizzle.

So I didn’t expect much when I stuck my head out of the back door at around 22:20 UT. The first thing that struck me was how warm (6°C) it felt despite being dressed in a T-shirt and lightweight fleece pullover. Then I noticed how damp it felt: our local humidity was nearing 100% it seems.

Not expecting much I looked up to the south west and I noticed something bright. The Moon was punching through the rapidly moving clouds well enough to be quite observable!

The morning of the solar eclipse and looking to the East it’s not a pretty picture. I can see the location of the Sun, which is a major advance on yesterday, but it’s not even bright enough to show up through the solar filter… not good. Optimism wins out, and I decide to set up the solar telescopes – white light and hydrogen alpha (Hα) – before having breakfast in the hope that luck will be with me today.

It’s time for another open cluster, and in truth I’ve built myself a bit of a backlog. The issue is that I’m too lazy to scan my drawings in a timely fashion. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. This time I’ve chosen to turn my telescope, with pencil in hand, on M103 (one of Charles Messier’s objects) in the constellation of Cassiopeia for the second time this season. The first was with my ST-80, but I felt that 44x magnification didn’t to it justice.

A couple of nights ago I got the chance to set my Vixen A80MF telescope up for a session under the stars. It’s been a while since I last used it, I’ve been using a newtonian and binoculars recently, but the it’s reminded me why I like refractors so much. This isn’t an instrument for wide field views normally, it’s my double star scope, but with a 16mm Skywatcher Nirvana eye piece (82 degree AFOV) the view of the double cluster was fantastic.

I’ve finally made a start on the open cluster observing programme I talked about in… February this year! It seemed sensible to start with an easy one because I was determined not just to observe and classify, but to produce a sketch too. The chosen target was Stephenson 1, which is also known as the Delta Lyra Cluster. As you’ve probably guessed, the delta Lyrae visual double – and many would say that is enough reason to take a look – plays a key role in the structure of this open cluster.

Charles Messier Charles Messier was born in 1730, in France, and grew up to be a comet obsessed astronomer working in Paris. To be fair to Messier, most 18th century astronomers were obsessed with comets since discovery could bring fame and riches. Whilst hunting for these bringers of wealth, Messier kept finding himself confounded by other objects that appear non-stellar, but lacked one of a comet’s defining features: they weren’t moving.

I managed to find this comet quite easily as a large fuzzy dot with my 10×50 binoculars on the 3rd August 2014 when it was south of eta Aurigae. Visually I couldn’t see a tail, but I’ve been informed that one appears on images. It was around magnitude 6–7, so quite bright, and it’s moving towards Perseus, fading as it goes. Here’s a chart (Carte du Ciel again) to help you find it (click on it for a larger view).

I’m chasing Messier objects with binoculars at the moment. To be honest most aren’t all that impressive, but whilst searching out these objects in Ophiuchus I encountered something fabulous. I found a huge cluster of bright stars with an obvious profusion of faint stars forming the background field. It immediately struck me that after a lean time on Messiers this object was what binoculars were made for. But I wasn’t done!

Navigating to open clusters with a red dot finder is difficult. Many are some distance from a visible bright star – bright is magnitude 4 or more around here – and an Alt-Az (Altitude–Azimuth) mount is next to useless without an optical finder under these conditions. When double star hunting I usually prefer my Equatorial mount, and I think it’d be the best tool for the open clusters program too. Heavy though it is, once aligned it’s much easier to find your way around using the slow motion controls for RA (Right Accession) or Dec (Declination) whilst looking through the eye piece.

You may remember that I announced my intention to complete the open cluster program this year. Well we’re a couple of months in and a few things are clearer to me now. And that year’s seeming short than I’d expected. When is a group of stars a cluster? As a relatively new observer I’m used to open clusters like M37 which, courtesy of Stellarium, looks something like this. Open Cluster M37 in Stellarium They’re pretty obviously a cluster of stars aren’t they, so no problem there, even I can find that as long as I’m looking at the right one.

This is my third year as an astronomical observer, and I’ve decided the time has come to kick off a few projects aimed at improving my practical skills. Observing open clusters. The Astronomical League have some fantastic material and programs that are available online, even to non-members. I wish British astronomical organisations were more like their American counterparts (a discussion for another day). Anyway, the program that’s caught my imagination is the Open Cluster Observing Program which provides a list of 125 objects from various catalogues, most of which I’ve never encountered.