Observations 10/10/2024

Richard P. Hill

Present: Alyssa Ebeling

10/10/2024

This is a report I was not expecting to write. I ordered a Seestar S50 a couple of days prior and planned on using it immediately, but I'm surprised by the circumstances. I was told there would be a decent chance of seeing the aurora that night, thus prompting quite the hunt. Alyssa and I went out to the MAS Observatory as per usual. We were thinking of going further, but it was a school night, and neither of us wanted to be wiped out for the next day. We could not see anything unusual when we arrived around 10:00 P.M., so we started imaging with the Seestar and kept watch.

The Andromeda Galaxy has been something I've tried to image a couple of times. The first time was my camera attached to the C11. This was way too much magnification. This wasn't a horribly long exposure, but it turned out quite well nonetheless. I plan on going through all of these objects again with a much longer exposure time.

I don't have much to say about the Triangulum Galaxy, but it is a straightforward target. I again plan on taking a much more prolonged exposure when given a chance since this galaxy is easily one of the most breath taking. I was thrilled with this picture, but it also had the longest exposure time.

Consider this picture more of a bench mark. I have taken pictures of the Pleiades many times. I find this a great way to express the field of view of many scopes.

This is by far the easiest Nebula to image. It has an apparent magnitude around four which is extremely bright. This exposure was only around 10 minutes long if that. We had to stay up quite late to capture this one, but it was well worth it.

Consider this yet another bench mark. I plan on taking images again of Jupiter since it seems to have captured it at a decent quality. Of course it is very over exposed, so I will have to figure out how to remedy this before I try again.

This one surprised me a lot. This is only a 250mm scope. It does not have much magnification, but yet it was able to discern the general shape of Saturn. I find this quite hopeful for smaller objects.

This is the picture I have been chasing for a while. It wasn't until around 12:30 P.M. that the aurora was visible. Even then, the word visible may be a stretch. It was more or less just slight shimmers in the sky. I took long exposures on my iPhone 14 Pro, which turned out quite well. I plan on getting much better photos when the chance arises, but that may be quite a while.