Ad Astra Observatory

We’ve just moved into the new house in WA. It has been a fairly cloudy spring here, so I as worried that I would not get to see any sky for awhile. The astronomy gods were kind, and I got a pair of nice clear nights to assess the skies.

I did empty the storage unit, so all the observatory gear is in the shop, but nothing is set up, so I was just looking up with a pair of binoculars and naked eye.

It stays light quite late; it was after 9 before the mag 1 stars started popping out. Once it got fairly dark around 11, I could already tell that the skies are better than Newark. I could nearly see the third star in the bowl of the Little Dipper.

Pegasus was rising in the east, Arcturus was high in the west. I could not see the Milky Way, although I think it will be possible to glance it in darker skies. I had a faint naked eye view of M31. Through the binoculars, I was easily able to pick out M31 and M13.

There are a couple of irritatingly bright lights near the neighbors’ houses, but generally, it’s pretty dark for a suburban neighborhood.

It was nice to get out and look up a bit. More to come from Hilltop.