First Clear Sky Stargazing (publ. 2024-09-03)

I woke up very early this morning (2024-09-03) due to some noise, and then was having trouble falling back asleep. After getting up, I noticed it was still clear skies out, and so I decided to head out to the front yard. I had a nice time of mostly naked-eye stargazing from about 2am until 3:50am.

I decided to focus on naked-eye star gazing, since it would have been too noisy to get my telescopes out of storage, and also I wanted to focus on studying the constellations and brighter stars, rather than focusing on one small FoV. I did bring the binoculars out for a little while, but they fogged up in about 5 minutes, from my breath I think, and I decided to just put them away. It was a little chilly out — 36 deg F — but not too bad with no wind and wearing my winter coat and cap.

After the experience this morning, I think I will focus at lot more on naked-eye stargazing this winter.

- Naked-eye stargazing is the most comfortable option for stargazing in the extreme cold weather up here. I can remain standing and bundled up the entire time, and I don't have to handle any freezing cold metal or plastic equipment.

- Setup time is basically instantanous, which is important on my very tight time budget.

- Even in brighter suburban skies, there is usually still enough naked-eye targets to look at, to keep me busy for several hours at a time.

- It is fun to compare my naked-eye observations with my sky chart books.

But I'm leaving open the option of using the binocs and telescopes, if I have the energy. My old 60mm refractor is very convenient for moon observations. The mount is still broke on that 90mm refractor I found, but I haven't had the time even to think about it, let alone fix it.

Something I would like to try, if I get some extra money, are these Orion 2x54 wide-angle binocs:

Orion 2x54 Ultra Wide Angle Binoculars

My hope is these would increase my light gathering, but be easier to manage than a normal pair of binocs.

I figured out a trick tonight, which is a rather obvious one perhaps to others, but it saved me a lot of pain. It finally occurred to me that, while doing naked-eye stargazing, I can look up with my eyes, rather than my neck. Out of habit, I would naturally bend my neck back so that I could focus straight on at the target. But the humans eyes are quite capable of rolling upward on their own, so it is possible to look at high targets without bending the neck, or bending it just a little.

Here are some of the targets that were easy for me to view tonight:

- Of course, it was a treat to see Mars, Jupiter, and the α Taurus in such a nice, close, symmetrical arrangement. I could see little ζ Tau in between Mars and Jupiter.

- Pleiades was sparkling as usual.

- In Auriga, I was fascinated by the little triangle of stars: ɛ, η, and ζ.

- ɑ and β Gemini were bright. ɛ, γ, ν, μ, and η Gemini make an interesting shape which to me resembles a clothes hanger, and points towards Mars.

- α and γ Orion were twinkling heavily near the horizon.

- One of the legs of Ursa Major, ι, θ, and κ, drew my attention. The rest of the bear was hidden behind a tree.

- Perseus was quite visible.

- Somewhere east of the Pleiades I saw an asterism that looked to me like a zig-zagging snake, stretching north to south, but I think it was actually stars from two or three different constellations.

- Where I was standing, most of Pegasus was hidden by trees, but I could see the legs of Pegasus. (Pegasus is upside down.) To me, the stars β, μ, λ, ι, and ν Pegasus stand out on their own, as a beautiful pointy gem shape.

- I spent a while trying to observe some of the dimmer stars around the top half of Cygnus.

The aurora was out this morning, but only very faint wisps of green, flickering here and there across the sky.

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