I set up around 8:30 PM EDT, when it was still light, and observed Jupiter and Venus while I waited for it to get dark. My telescope is a 75mm Unitron refractor (F/16). Seeing was moderate on the planets. On Jupiter, all four major moons were visible in a pleasing configuration. The north and south equatorial belts were obvious with hints of some structure in the NEB at higher magnification. I did not see the GRS, but I'm not sure if it was in view at the time. The gibbous phase of Venus was visible at higher magnification, but otherwise, I don't have much to report about Venus.

Other highlights:

1. Around 9:10 PM, the International Space Station passed overhead on a highly inclined orbit with a path from south to north. I identified it using the Stellarium app on my phone. It passed almost through the zenith, near the handle of the Big Dipper, and then descended toward the NNE in the vicinity of Vega. It was similar in brightness to Jupiter (a little brighter), but not as bright as Venus.

2. I tried some deep sky objects, starting with M95 and M96 in Leo. I have medium-to-high confidence that I saw M96, but I'm less sure about M95 (low confidence). For some reason, the sky background appeared mottled to me, which might reflect the sky conditions at the time, since it was not yet fully dark. It might also reflect changes in my vision over the 20+ years since I last did regular observations. In any case, the mottling effect made it harder to identify faint fuzzies with confidence.

3. I continued with deep sky objects, moving on to M65 and M66, also in Leo. They were "faint fuzzies" but easily seen with a satisfying view. Both galaxies fit comfortably in the same FOV at 48x. I did not attempt to see NGC 3628. I did not notice the "mottling" effect as much by this time. The sky was also darker.

4. M13 in Her was spectacular, as always. I recall, in the past, sometimes catching glimpses of granularity in M13 with averted vision under very dark skies. I did not see that effect last night.

5. The main event for the evening was an observation of the brightness of SW Vir. Using my SkyAtlas 2000 to star hop to the location was straightforward, as there are some distinctive finder stars for this variable. I then switched to an AAVSO chart for my magnitude estimate: 7.5. Afterward, I looked up recent observational data for this variable on the AAVSO website and found that my estimate is right in the middle of the pack for recent estimates. That was gratifying.

6. I checked out the multiple start Theta Vir (it was on the way to SW Vir). I didn't know the details for the star at the time, so it was, shall we say, "a shot in the dark." I did not notice any secondary. When I looked up the numbers for Theta Vir afterward, I discovered that the main star is a spectroscopic binary with magnitudes 4.49 and 6.83. It's no surprise I didn't see that! However, there is also another component with magnitude 9.4 at a 7" separation. While theoretically possible in my instrument, that would not be an easy target for me.

I noticed what seemed to me to be an excessive number of satellites. I suppose this is just a statement of how long it has been since I last did any serious observing. At one point, I saw four satellites all moving in the same visual FOV. While I was trying to observe M96, a satellite passed directly over the galaxy! It was crazy!

I packed up around 10:30 PM. The temperature at that time was 44F.

The attached image is of my telescope just before the start of my observing session last night.

See attached image lit by a red LED light.

I'm wondering if anyone else has used this location and if doing so does not violate any rules. I wrote an email to the Family Center contact address asking how they felt about me coming to set up, both as an individual and, potentially, as a location for VAS outreach events. I haven't yet heard back about that.

Although William Henry Pickering was official credited with its discovery in 1889, the Horsehead Nebula was first recorded on a photographic plate taken by Williamina Paton Fleming at the Harvard College Observatory in 1888. The first published description of the Horsehead Nebula was given by E. E. Barnard in 1913, and it was first cataloged by him in 1919.

Barnard 33 is the most interesting feature of a huge region of gas and dust situated 1,600 light years away in the constellation Orion. It is a dark globule of dust and non-luminous gas, obscuring the light coming from the moderately bright nebula IC 434 behind it. The red glow of IC 434 originates from ionized hydrogen gas. The bright, bluish reflection nebula near the Horsehead is NGC 2023.

The underside of the "neck" of the Horsehead is especially dark, and actually casts a shadow on the field below the "muzzle". The entire region is illuminated by the bright OB star Sigma Orionis, which is also responsible for ionizing the emission nebula IC 434. The much brighter Zeta Orionis is a foreground star, not related to the nebulosity.    Sky Safari pro 6

I shot this with a TEC140 scope with AP QTCC reducer/corrector to bring the scope to F5.   The camera is an ASI6200 mono with Chroma filters.  I shot the image in an RGB+Ha palette and did not do any color modification or saturation as the colors seemed perfect after Pixinsight SPCC.

Clear Skies,

Terri

Sh 2-155 (also designated Caldwell 9, Sharpless 155 or S155, or LBN529) is a diffuse nebula in the constellation Cepheus, within a larger nebula complex containing emission, reflection, and dark nebulosity. It is widely known as the Cave Nebula, though that name was applied earlier to Ced 201, a different nebula in Cepheus. Sh 2-155 is an ionized H II region with ongoing star formation activity,at an estimated distance of 725 parsecs (2400 light-years) from Earth.

Sh 2-155 was first noted as a galactic emission nebula in 1959 in the extended second edition of the Sharpless catalogue, being a part of the much larger Cep OB3 Association. Although Sh 2-155 is relatively faint for amateur observation, some of its structure may be seen visually through a moderately sized telescope under dark skies.

I've taken a total of 15 hours of exposures to make this image through a TEC140 with 0.7 focal reducer and ASI6200MM camera and Chroma SHO and RGB filters.  Except for 30 minutes each for R,G and B, most of the exposure is in narrowband.    The palette I used is OHS versus the normal SHO.     I just like it better in this image.

NGC 4244, also known as Caldwell 26, is an edge-on loose spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici, and is part of the M94 Group or Canes Venatici I Group, a galaxy group relatively close to the Local Group containing the Milky Way. In the sky, it is located near the yellow naked-eye star, Beta Canum Venaticorum, but also near the barred spiral galaxy NGC 4151 and irregular galaxy NGC 4214.

With an apparent V-band magnitude of 10.18, NGC 4244 lies approximately 4.3 megaparsecs (14 million light years) away. A nuclear star cluster and halo is located near the centre of this galaxy.  (Wikipedia)    

What is a nuclear star cluster you might ask:

A nuclear star cluster (NSC) or compact stellar nucleus (sometimes called young stellar nucleus) is a star cluster with high density and high luminosity near the center of mass of most galaxies.

NSCs are the central massive objects of fainter, low-mass galaxies where supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are not present or are of negligible mass. In the most massive galaxies, NSCs are entirely absent. Some galaxies, including the Milky Way, are known to contain both a NSC and a SMBH of comparable mass.

^(wikipedia)

I imaged this object with my TEC180 refractor with 0.9x flattener installed.   The Camera is a QHY600PH-M with Chroma RGB filters.   I've been playing around with doing just RGB instead of mostly luminance with a little RGB.    The RGB only has given me better colors but I know an L is must more efficient in photon capture, so it's all a tradeoff.    I wish we had more clear skies as I'm data starved.    I captured a total of 9.5 hours of exposures, each 8 minutes long using an extended well depth exposure mode on the camera.    

First detected 6/12/2025 astronomers from the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae at Ohio State University, it started with a magnitude of +8.4, as of 6/16 it was +5.7.

Star formation is one of the most important processes in shaping the universe. In addition to birthing new stars, it gives rise to planetary systems and plays a pivotal role in the evolution of galaxies. Yet there is still much that astronomers do not understand about this fundamental process. The driving force behind star formation is particularly unclear for a type of galaxy called a flocculent spiral. Unlike grand-design spiral galaxies, flocculent spiral galaxies do not have well defined spiral arms. Instead, they appear to have many discontinuous arms.

M63, also known as the Sunflower galaxy, is one such flocculent spiral galaxy. Although it only has two arms, many appear to be winding around its yellow core in this image captured by Hubble. The arms shine with the radiation from recently formed blue stars and can be more clearly seen in infrared observations. By imaging flocculent spiral galaxies like M63, astronomers hope to gain a better understanding of how stars form in such systems.

The Sunflower galaxy was discovered in 1779 by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain and was the first of 24 objects that Méchain would contribute to Charles Messier’s catalog. The galaxy is located roughly 27 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici. It has an apparent magnitude of 9.3 and appears as a faint patch of light in small telescopes. The best time to observe M63 is during May.

I shot M63 with a TEC180Fl refractor and ZWO ASI6200MM monochrome camera through Chroma LRGB plus Ha filters.   I have around 16 hours of exposure, 5 of them being in Ha.    M62 has star cloud that it's interacting with in the structures you see passing over the arms as well as the cloud that surrounds it.  It will take much more exposure for me to capture a deeper image of the surrounding area.     

The wide field of M63 includes 100's of other galaxies.   It's fun to search through and find all of the little pearls.

Wide field:

M42 is a combination of emission and reflection nebula.     from Wikipedia:

The Orion Nebula is visible with the naked eye even from areas affected by light pollution. It is seen as the middle "star" in the "sword" of Orion, which are the three stars located south of Orion's Belt. The "star" appears fuzzy to sharp-eyed observers, and the nebulosity is obvious through binoculars or a small telescope. The peak surface brightness of the central region of M42 is about 17 Mag/arcsec² and the outer bluish glow has a peak surface brightness of 21.3 Mag/arcsec².

The Orion Nebula contains a very young open cluster, known as the Trapezium Clusterdue to the asterism of its primary four stars within a diameter of 1.5 light years. Two of these can be resolved into their component binary systems on nights with good seeing, giving a total of six stars. The stars of the Trapezium Cluster, along with many other stars, are still in their early years. The Trapezium Cluster is a component of the much larger Orion Nebula cluster, an association of about 2,800 stars within a diameter of 20 light years. The Orion Nebula is in turn surrounded by the much larger Orion molecular cloud complex, which is hundreds of light years across, spanning the whole Orion Constellation. Two million years ago the Orion Nebula cluster may have been the home of the runaway stars AE Aurigae, 53 Arietis, and Mu Columbae, which are currently moving away from the nebula at speeds greater than 100 km/s (62 mi/s).

Enjoy   

Looks to me as if it's because there hasn't been any posts in months.