Ad Astra Observatory

I drove back to Newark today to get the pier for the G-11. That ate a lot of time — I was on the road by 10a, got back at 4p or so.

I started setting up before sunset in hope of catching the moon, and also it takes awhile to get all set up. I got to the point of testing the power — no joy.

These powertanks are not up to the task of driving the G-11.

I need to build myself a nice solid 18v DC battery bank. I put the powertanks in parallel, that got things going a little. These ‘tanks have just been mistreated, sitting essentially unused since 2005. Low mileage, just not exercised enough. Even in parallel, they were not up to keeping even the RA drive running for long. I gave up on a powered solution and went rustic. Essentially, the G-11 was running as a big Dob.

Once I mentally switched gears into “visual” mode and then into “unpowered” mode, I had a really nice time.

We looked at M8, M15, Jupiter (in eastern Capricorn), M13, M51, and M31. M51 was spectacular at 100x, showing a large disk and hints of spiral arms. M31 spilled out of the frame at 40x, bright core, slightly dimmer inner arms, spilling off to much dimmer outer arms. Both were heart-breakingly beautiful in Veronica.

At this point, everyone else pooped out and went to bed, leaving me to get down to some serious visual astronomy. I shared time between Veronica, Pumpkin, and binoculars. I also sat and enjoyed the sky and the tranquility some. The highlight of the evening for me was The Veil Nebula. I pointed Veronica at the bright star in NGC 6960, and there it was. No filter. Just me, Veronica, and the sky. I could see the whole Witch’s Broom. I found NGC 6992 by sweeping. Both were gorgeous, over an extremely starry background. I saw no trace of Pickering’s Triangle. I couldn’t believe I was seeing these objects without a camera!

I also saw NGC7000’s bright patch, I’m 90% sure.

As the night wore on, and I began to feel the effects of 2 weeks straight of staying up too late, I kept almost stopping and then seeing a new “wow” object. I found one object by seeing it naked eye, then trying to find it in the scope, and as near as I can tell, it was NGC 7789 “Caroline’s Rose”, an open cluster discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783. M52 is also in the area, but it’s not in the right position relative to Cassiopeia. I counted more than 9 stars in the Great Square of Pegasus (I made a little sketch in my notebook) — in Newark, I count zero.

The skies here are pretty good. I must figure out how to work unplugged.