Astronomy

Observing Log for

Session Details


Tillicoultry

56.157, -3.749

50m

Notes

After a cloudy day the skies cleared around sunset to a cold, clear night. The wind was very gusty early in the evening.

Observations

M42

I used the Vixen ED80sf to capture a number of images of the M42 region in Orion's sword. This is a nice bright target so within reach of my setup. Conditions were quite challenging with a gusting wind blowing, especially early on. I am quite pleased with the result although I need to continue to learn about post-processing as there is very little colour coming out of the data.

The Great Orion Nebula, M42

M35

I revisited M35 to confirm my observation from the previous evening. This is a large but faint cluster with a very obvious arc of stars. I tried to identify the nearby cluster NGC 2158 but conditions weren't great with the Moon causing a loss of contrast.

Caldwell 50

This open cluster sits within the heart of the Rosette Nebula. This is a dim area of the sky and the Moonlight made star hopping difficult. I think I located the cluster which contains a small number of bright stars in a rectangular arrangement. There was no hint of nebulosity. One to check out from a dark sky site during a new moon.

Images