Explore the Cosmos

I finally purchased a new scope, the Askar 120APO. This will be my first refractor and should give much better shots of just about everything. It should also provide a much better viewing experience as well. The only bad news is that it's on backorder and I have no idea when it'll get here. Since Askar is a Chinese company and it's currently Lunar New Year, I'm assuming no progress will be made until mid February.

I haven't been able to get out lately because of the clouds. Also the Clear Sky Charts haven't updated in the new year yet (https://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/). Not sure if they're going to come back up or if I need to find another source. Either way, I'm still making progress on the website, I added a page for detecting satellite moon transits. Given your coordinates, it detects if any satellites will pass between you and the moon in the next 24 hours while the sun is down the moon is up.

Finally got out last night to try out the EQ mount. I heard they're less intuitive than that alt-az mounts but I didn't think that was the case. I also didn't have any trouble getting the whole thing setup and aligned to track properly. The built in polar-scope really helped and it was clear enough to easily find Polaris. I think most nights won't be the easy because there's a city a bit to my north that causes a lot of light-pollution so most nights Polaris isn't easy to spot. Regardless, the new EQ mount, the new phone mount, and the new camera all worked well together. I'm still struggling to properly edit the photos coming from the camera but I'll get there eventually. For now, the phone photos provide more color (see phone image below with 30 sec exposure). I was able to get the Orion Nebula and Mars last night. I think mars is close to perigee and I didn't have Mars pictures here yet so I figured that'd be a good second option to photograph last night.

It's a Christmas Miracle! I got a new and improved phone mount, an EQ4 equatorial mount, a QHY5iii462, and a bunch of other accessories. The only unfortunate part is that it's been and will be cloudy for the foreseeable future. I did get out the day after Christmas though and got some good pictures with the QHY5iii462 in between the clouds rolling in and out. This was taken with the old alt/az mount, where the down slow-motion control does not work, so it was a bit of a struggle getting pictures, especially for objects that were moving down in the sky. Can't wait to try everything else out!

Finally a good night to look at the stars and tragedy struck. My phone mount broke, so no more pictures until probably after Christmas. I guess that's what I get for trying to save a couple extra bucks and buying a used phone mount. Other than that, not a bad night. It finally wasn't too cold and I saw the double star Castor for the first time. The highlight of the night though was probably looking at mars and Jupiter with the 6mm with the 2x Barlow (217x magnification). I also saw the Orion Nebula with the 15mm which is also always good. I think the Orion Nebula is still my favorite object to view.

Also unrelated.. I got the idea tonight to add to this website a list of the objects I've seen so far. Then each night I go out, I should try to look for something new. I can keep a record of when I saw it, with what equipment/accessories, the date, the location, etc.. The only issue is I don't think I want to have all kinds of "paperwork" to fill out each time I go, so I should try to account for that somehow.. Either way, something to think about..

I figured I should make a post outlining the equipment I have. So here that is:
• Celestron StarSense Explorer dx 130az
• 25mm, 15mm, 10mm, and 6mm lenses
• 2x Barlow lens
• Celestron Heavy-Duty Tripod with the default StarSense Explorer Alt-Az mount
• Phone mount (iPhone 14 Pro)
• Generic moon, blue, and red filters

It's been too cold out lately to go out and enjoy a good session. Also, according to the Clear Sky Chart, the viewing has been bad lately anyway. I'm not going to freeze outside for subpar viewing.