We would like this page to focus on members observing sessions. Please share any observing that you do.
June 19 From the Observing Log of Kirsten Watson
Givhans Ferry State Park 06-19-09
The sky is not looking promising for tonights observing. There are still a lot of clouds in the sky and the humidity is very high. Dean Glace, Ron Winkles, Jim Ellett, Chris Morrow and Jim Hoffman also came out with their scopes.
Observed:
21:45, M57- through Jim E. 11in scope and a 40mm Williams Optics Eyepiece. The Ring Nebular looks nice through his
scope. But the sky is still to light.
22:07, M13-We looked at the beautiful Hercules Globular Cluster with a 17mm Hyperion Eyepiece. It still looks nice with
the bad sky.
22:11, M97- same Eyepiece. The Owl Nebular in Ursa Major . The sky is so bad that we only could see a very,very faint
fuzzy spot in the sky.
22:13, M92- Is the other beautiful Globular Cluster in Hercules. This one is a little more elongated then M13.
22:20, M90- It is a Spiral Galaxy in Virgo. It appears as a bright elongated fuzzy shape with a center bright spot.
22:30, M64- The Black Eye Galaxy in Coma Berenices. The Galaxy is some what elongated and faint.
Shortly after we looked at M 64 Jim's Hand-Controller went in the fritz. What a bummer.
23:40, M80- Globular Cluster in Scorpius. Viewed with a 6in f8 Newt. and a 32mm Criterion Plossl Eyepiece. The Stars
appeared very faint.
After that I asked Dean G. to CCD image M4 in Scorpius. We all left shortly after midnight as the dew became very bad.. Hopefully we will have some better nights this summer so we can revisit these objects.
Sorry that I can not report on what els was observed by the other Members.
May 30 Thanks Jim for the cookout, we are so happy that Faye is cancer free! We were really happy to see Kevin. He was very busy taking pictures the whole night. Hopefully he will get them processed and on his web page soon. Kevin also gave a little talk to a group of Scouts. We had fun observing in the area of Sagittarius and Scorpius. The dew was not bad. We were a little concerned thinking that clouds were moving in until we realized it was the Milky Way. Jim E set up his new telescope for the first time to observe and had a little trouble. Thanks Ron for helping him. It was a long night of observing for some - 3am and other left after 4am.
April 24 We had a great turnout for the cookout and stargazing. There were 10 telescopes and one person forgot their stand (not Carol) and someone else forgot their scope. We did lots of observing. Jim E showed the sky to some people that were camping. One lady came to look that was biking to the Outer Banks. She had left New Orleans a few weeks ago and was staying at the park. A few of us talked to her for quite awhile
April 3 We had a great turnout for the public star party in Hanahan. About 250 people showed up to view the sky. A cub scout group came to work on a badge. Families looked at the moon, Saturn, the Orion nebula, the beehive, the pleiades, and the double star in the big dipper. Every family was given a free CD featuring year of Astronomy songs and a star chart. Thanks John K. for the CD's.
Another group of our club members set up their scopes for community observing at the new YMCA at the Ponds in Summerville. A few people showed up and had a great view of the sky. Thanks to all club members that participated.
Mar 22 Jim E went out, and viewing was much better than last night. He was amazed at the stars and the seeing comditions. It was 200% better than last night. He used the Orion Skyglo and broadband filter with his Baader Hyperion 13mm eyepiece and it was an awesome view of the Nebula and the Trapezium. Saturn was very clear as was 5 of its moons. M103, M51, M52, and the Pleiades were very clear. He even saw NGC2024 which is where the Horsehead Nebula is. He could not see the Horsehead. All in all, it was a fantastic night to look at the skies.
Mar 21 The sky was supposed to be clear for our club observing at Givhans. About 10 people showed up with 7 telescopes ( a wide variety of different scopes). We were glad to see Kevin R. and his family. We had a great time but the observing was not that great. A boy scout group was camping and they came over to look thru the scopes. The clouds would come and go. We would try to see some objects and wait for the clouds to move. We used our averted vision and "bobbing" method of observing to see some objects.
Mar 09 Jim E did some viewing in the back yard and got a real good look at the moon's Alps Valley. He observed Saturn and 4 of its moons all lined in a row. Great views even though the moon was bright. He even took a pic of the Alps Valley. Look on his astrophotophy page!
Mar 3/09 Brad P went out with his 8 inch Dob. He had an extremely great night of viewing. He saw galaxies M81, M82, M65, M66, M94, M64, M51, and the great M42. Light glare kept him from seeing M101. He also targeted star glusters M44, M67, M47, M46, M41, M93 and just visible M3 for the first time. Saturn and viewable moons also kept his interest for a while. He also attempted to view the moon even though it was 77% full.
Feb 23/09 Brad P. came to Jim E. house to view Comet Lulin and the night sky in general. Comet Lulin was very visible tonight and the tail was visible through the telecope. Nice green color and the comet was visible through the coma. Great night for viewing.
Feb. 22/09 Jim E., Chris, Carol and Jim M met at Givhans for a night of comet watching. We looked at many objects waiting for Comet Lulin to come up. When Saturn was high enough in the sky we started our look. We searched for quite awhile with no luck (no one brought the RA and DEC of the comet). We called Jim C and he looked it up on the internet for us and we were successful viewing the comet. It was quite disappointing.
Looking for items for your telescope. Keep checking Ebay. Jim Ellett got an Orion Skyglo and Broadband filter for $25. Good deals are still possible if you keep looking!
Feb. 21/09 Chris went to Givhans and it was a little cloudy so he left. Later Brad, Ron and Jim went to Givhans to observe Comet Lulin. Due to low clouds in the east, Lulin was not sighted but fun was had none the less observing other obhects. Jim borrowed Chris's Orion Stratus eyepieces and they had great viewing. Thanks Chris.
Jan. 31/09 A few members came out in the cold to observe at Givhans. We had a great time looking at double stars, many M and NGC objects in Leo and the Big Dipper. We tried different filters and were amazed at the view of nebulas thru the Orion broadband and narrow band filters. A boy scout group was camping at the site and Jim E. showed them the moon, Orion nebula and other objects. They were very appreciative
Jan. 30/09 We had a great turn out for Caw Caw. Club members brought 6 telescopes and large binos. The group of about 15 were very interested and stayed a while to view the moon, Venus, and many other M objects We told constellation stories and used a laser to point them out in the sky.
Dec. 2/08 - Chris and Carol went to Cottageville to observe with Jim. We went out in his backyard. We helped him find objects with his new telescope. Chris observed with his 10 inch and I took binos. Thanks Jim for the wonderfu dinner and the good observing.
Nov. 21/08 - Some club members brought their telescopes to Caw Caw and showed the sky to about 25 people.. We each had a different object in our telescope and everyone had a good time observing. It was cold, but everyone had a great time.(My goto quit working!) A group was camping and they even came to look thru our telescopes.
Nov. 10/08 - Chris and Carol went to a cub scout meeting to share the sky with the boys. Carol talked about a star wheel, what's up and some constellation stories. Chris brought his small telsecope and showed the boys and their parents Jupiter, the Moon and other objects.
May 2/08 - Carol, Jim and Chris helped out with their telescopes Friday night at Caw Caw's "Star Light Star Bright" program. We had 15 people attend the program. The sky was clear, and the first object we saw was Mercury. Later we showed the folks M 36, 37, 38, 42. Planets, Saturn and Mars. Chris tried to view the Whirlpool Galaxy. Most of the viewers were not able to see it. It was a good night until Carol's corrector plate dewed up and she had to shut down for the night. It seemed like the favorite for the night was Saturn, Chris went back to Saturn several times during the night.
April 29/08 - Chris and Carol observed in Chris' backyard. He connected his telescope to his laptop and used it to find objects using a planetarium program. He has trees and lots of light but we had fun. We looked at the area around Bootes, Hercules, and Gemini. We looked at M and NGC objects, and galaxies. The galaxies were so faint that we started looking at double stars. The colors of the doubles were pretty and I may have found a new interest.
April 16/08- Chris Morrow used his new pier setup to try some astro photography on Wednesday night. His setup was an Atlas EQ6 mount with a Meade 10" LX200R OTA with a Astro Tech 66mm refractor for guiding. A Canon 350 DSLR, with a F6.3 focal reducer, was attached to the LX200R OTA for taking the pictures. The mount was controlled by computer using the program Cartes du Ciel, which is free ware, and PHD ( Push Here Dummy) by Stark Labs also free ware. Guiding was done through the refractor scope with a Meade DSI-C camera connected to the computer using PHD. Cartes du Ciel did all the object finding and PHD did the guiding. Cartes du Ciel put every object in the camera field of view, so all Chris had to do was click on an object in Cartes du Ciel and the mount slewed straight to the object and start taking pictures.Chris was limited to 30 second exposures due to light polution from the Moon and surrounding lights, He tried a 8 minute exposure of Capella and it was totally washed out, almost a white background instead of a black background. He was able to get fairly good photos of NGC 2169, NGC 2264, M 37, M 85, M 53 and M 3. All in all he had a good time expirmenting with scope, camera amd computer.
April 12/08- Kevin Rasso participated in the 2nd Annual International Sidewalk Astronomy Night from down in Georgia. He showed a lot of people everything from galaxies to open clusters, Mars, Saturn, and the Moon. His scopes were running from 8:00 PM to 3:00 AM! Best quote from the evening was "Oh my God...hey guys...come over here...you can actually see the rings of Saturn...for real...get over here!" It was a wonderful night!
March 11/08- Chris had first light with his new pier in his back yard Tuesday night. Conditions were good and visibility great. It took Chris about 2 hours to polar align his mount due not being able to see Polaris. He looked at Saturn, Mars and several Messier objects before calling it a night.
March 1/08 -Our last observing session at Givhans Ferry was a great success. Chris, Carol, Jim, Kirsten, Ryan and James had a good time looking through telescopes. We started soon after 8 and started "going to" Messier objects. The sky was clear and then high clouds appeared and then left. The views of Mars and Saturn were great. By 9 our list of M objects was long -we started with M67, 44,42, 41,9,78,50,46 and many more. The weather was nice so our feet stayed fairly warm and our telescopes stayed dry. We ended the night looking at the double cluster, M34.
Feb. 29/08 - CawCaw - Fourteen people came out to look at the stars. It was a little cloudy and by the time it was dark it was fairly clouded over. The public got some views of Mars and Saturn and some good information. The group was very interested and said they would try and come out at a later date.