Observing session, October 6th

    
    I was able to get the telescope out last night, Monday, October 6th, after nearly a week of cloud covered skies and rain. At the time, the moon was out, and was almost full, so it nearly out shone everything else in the sky. Here's a shot I got of it with my phone, I basically just held it up to my telescope eyepiece:

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I was surprised that I was able to get a decent shot of the Moon here. You can actually see the depth in the craters and a lot of details. I was using a Meade Ma 40mm multi-coated lens, that's actually designed for use with an astrophotography camera mount. 


    Like I said before, the moon made it difficult to find anything else in the sky. I did manage to find M31, Andromeda Galaxy, but it was faint at best. I couldn't seem to locate any nebula that normally I would've had no trouble finding. I had also set out to find M33, Triangulum galaxy, unfortunately to no avail. When I realized it was going to be nearly impossible to find any Messiers given my circumstances, I broke out my Fujifilm Finepix S 4800 and attempted some night sky shots. It isn't a DSLR so it wouldn't pick up a huge amount of starlight, I'm sure the moon played a role there as well, but it did fairly decent:

  

   













    I just recently figured out how to leave the shutter open on the camera for an extended period of time, and at that point I realized it would be possible for me to have a shot at astrophotgraphy, and well, there's the results! Not all that bad really, for a bridge camera. I have a Velbon 9000 deluxe tripod that I received as a gift, but unfortunately, it was missing the plate that the camera mounts to. So I had to order one, and it's on its way. So in the near future I'll be able to use that to get some good shots of the sky. I'm thinking next time I try, I may get better results if the moon isn't out, so I'll see how that goes and keep the blog updated as to that.


   There's a nature preserve near where I live that's hosting an astronomical event this December, and I'm hoping to attend that and take the telescope out there with me. So you'll be hearing from me on that, and I'll keep the blog updated before then as well.