Open: Friday, 20 December 2024, 1810 MST Temperature: 71°F

Session: 2053 Conditions: Clear

Equipment:
12" f/8 LX600 w/StarLock
2" 24mm UWA eyepiece
Focal reducer

Camera:
D850 DSLR

Prepared the D850 DSLR camera for imaging.

1819 MST: LX600 ON, StarLock OFF, High Precision ON.

Viewed Venus, 102X. Half-phase visible. Then viewed Saturn, 102X. Viewed Jupiter and the four Galilean Moons, 102X.

Mounted the D850 DSLR at prime focus + focal reducer, focused on the star Aldebaran, locked the telescope mirror, and slewed to the first Barnard Object (dark nebula) to be imaged this session. I initially used the coordinate corrections I had determined on the previous session.

1835 MST: StarLock ON.

Took the following images of Barnard Objects, StarLock autoguided, 30 seconds, ISO 6400. I made slight adjustments when imaging by comparing the camera Live View to reference images provided by Grasslands Observatory.

1940 MST: StarLock OFF.

I then viewed, or tried to, the following Barnard Objects (dark nebulae), 102X: B212, B213, B214, B215, B216, B11, B217, B218, B12, B13, B15 (same as B16 and B17), B18, B19, and B219.

I then viewed NGC1977 (the Running Man Nebula), 102X. (I had used one of my images of the Running Man Nebula on the front cover of my autobiography Finding my Way to the Stars, published in 2021.)

2031 MST: LX600 OFF.

2037 MST: Took a Sky Quality reading.

Close: Friday, 20 December 2024, 2040 MST Temperature: 58°F

Session Length: 2h 30m Conditions: Clear, breezy, SQM 20.67

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