long run on the shortest night (Blue Mountains)

Viewed Jupiter. Blue sky. Low. It was swimming.

Sat 21 Jun 2014, 9:55 PM. Viewed α (alpha) Librae. It was very wide in the Celestron 14" compound with the 55mm eyepiece. It was still wide in the Tele Vue 101mm refractor with the 10mm ocular. An intense white. I thought pale orange the secondary.

10:17 PM. Humidity was 78% according to the Davis Weather station. Temp 15.2. Dew point 11.4. The low prediction, for Collinwood, was 13.

Risa looked at Saturn

10:32. The Paramount was acting weird. Slews stopped working right. It kept going north. Restarted everything.

11:07. I photographed the comet. Used the intervalometer.

11:11. Did a few darks.

11:29. SkyTools crashed again. Rotation field error. I could recreated it. Razvan and I commiserated. He's familiar with software development.

11:47. Tried to split AB: no joy. Used the 10mm in the C14. Steve put is big refractor on it. It is a 102mm aperture, f/8. We used the ethos 13mm so 61x. I could see the E and F stars with averted.

Spotted TYC 02543-0914 1. I thought there were 4 stars.

Sun 22 Jun 2014, 12:00 AM. Viewed the quasar near LDS4214A. Off to the top-left. Saw GSC 02528-0091, GSC 02528-0510, and GSC 02528-0251. A big L. Razvan really enjoyed that, seeing his first quasar. Quasi-stellar radio source B2 1225+317.

12:12 AM. Viewed NGC 4452. A nice thin small needle galaxy.

12:24. Went to Messier 13 (M13) for Razvan.

12:59. Viewed Markarian 841. Crazy. Hard to see anything. In the centre of a big C-shape. Went to the 18mm.

1:20. Tried imaging Cor Caroli. Bright. Wide. Hints of colour.

Then headed to NGC 4656.

2:28. I dunno. I was frustrated. Had a hard time positioning, seeing things, figuring out the field rotation. [ed: Part of the problem was that I was thinking of a different galaxy so had the wrong expectations as to what I would see on the camera. I was thinking of the very symmetrical NGC 4565.]

Bent an arm on my glasses somehow! Damn it!

Risa returned my mirror and adapter and Steve's eyepiece.

2:35. Viewed V343 Peg. Yellow and yellow? Or maybe yellow and orange? A nice pair in the C14. Tight and somewhat faint in the TV101.

2:39. Viewed the number 1 star in Pegasus. A super bright primary, yellow. The pair looked yellow and blue in the C14 with 27mm; perhaps yellow and orange in the TV101. Very wide.

2:42. Viewed Messier 31 (M31), Messier 110 (M110), Messier 32 (M32) in Steve's TAC. A very nice view.

2:45. Had another look at 1 Pegasi. Spotted C star in the C14. It was not visible in the TV101. C was in-line with bright star at edge of field, HD 203536.

3:00. Tried to see Barnard's Galaxy. Not obvious in 27mm. Noted a ring of very faint stars... Was that it? Not obvious with various eyepieces.

4:08. Checked the local conditions. Wind speed over a 10 minute average: 3.2. From the NE. Humidity was 54. The barometer read 101.39. Temp was 13.9.

4:12. Shot darks.

It was light outside as Steve and I walked to the house! So far north...