Astronomy Observation Record
| Date: 4-22-2012 |
Time: 9:30 - 10:30 p.m. |
Location: Brambly Hill |
| Instrument: Northstar |
Aperture: 76mm |
Focal length: 700mm |
| Eyepiece/Magnification: 32/22 17/41 13/54 8/88 |
| Transparency: Average |
Seeing: Good/Excellent |
| Conditions: Cool, low winds. Some high clouds |
| Object |
Notes |
|
Venus
|
Started with Venus at dusk. Very bright against evening sky. Showed a definite crescent shape at medium magnification.
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Mars
|
Mars looked as red as I've ever seen it to the naked eye. Featureless red disk through telescope at all magnifications.
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Saturn
|
Saturn showed as a yellowish circle with "ears" at low power. AS I stepped up the magnification the view just kept getting better and better. At 87X I could only hold it in the eyepiece for about 30 seconds or so. Best view was at 54X with the 13mm eyepiece. Good detail between the rings and the planetary disk but not moving too fast through the field of view.
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Mizar & Alcor
|
Stopped briefly at Mizar and Alcor. Always pleased at the way it keeps splitting. At low power Mizar is an elongated oval. At medium power and above it resolves into a nice pair of stars. At 87X I wasn't able to hold Alcor and Mizar in the field of view at the same time.
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Cor Caroli
|
Ended the night splitting Cor Caroli. At low power it showed as a double, but at medium and high power it appeared as two separate blue-white stars. The primary shows double the size of the secondary, and is quite a bit brighter.
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I tried to find M94 -- but I need to spend some time figuring out how my 'scope compares to the finder views in "Turn Left."