Observations 10/4/2024

Richard P. Hill

Present: Some MAS members

10/4/2024

Time to catch you up. I joined the Milwaukee Astronomical Society last month or so. They have an observatory that is not but 20 minutes from campus, so it works out quite well for me. That night, I wanted to go and learn how to use one of the bigger telescopes, but the person who was going to train me had work the next day, so that is shelved for now. I didn't go home empty-handed though. I set up the society's Unistellar eVscope 2. This fully computerized telescope does everything from orientation and calibration to full tracking. It is an alt-azimuth mount, so this comes back with some drawbacks, but it is cool nonetheless! The full telescope specs can be found on Unistellar's website, so without further ado, here are the pictures I got.

The Dumbbell Nebula (M27) is in the constellation Vulpecula. Its apparent magnitude is around 7.5. This nebula is known as a planetary nebula, which means that it is a region of cosmic gas and dust from the outer layers of a dying star. This is my first true deep-space photo to turn out somewhat well—hopefully, the first of many. More data can be found on NASA's website.

The Pleiades (M45) is considered an asterism and is part of an open cluster. It is located in the constellation of Taurus. It has an apparent magnitude of 1.6. I have imaged the Pleiades many times, but this time was more or less just to test the scope. More data can be found at NASA's website.