Stargazing

I had a good night on my little balcony. My apartment is on the northern side of our building. The view is severely limited by other balconies, trees and a hill with bright street lights surrounding and atop a parking garage. Being in the midst of the San Francisco to San Jose sprawl the the light pollution is absolutely horrible.

One of my personality flaws is a desire to have everything "perfect" before I begin a task. Sounds good until you realize you're using it as an excuse to put tasks off indefinitely. This evening I looked outside and decided to stop waiting until I'd found an observing site with dark skies and full views.

I have a pair of Celestron binoculars I purchased while I was attending a Astronomy class at CSM. They are 15x70's(a 15x magnification with an aperture of 70mm.) And were fantastic value at ~$80.

I immediately gave up on using my tripod. The patio is just too tight and with the view already so limited I needed to lean over the railing a bit in order to see some interesting areas. Holding the binocular manually didn't work well either, it's difficult to hold them still enough. The best compromise I found was to use my monopod and brace it against the railing, chairs and table in various ways. I also took my laptop loaded with Starry Night Enthusiast to help me find what might be visible to me.

After turning off all the apartment lights that might shine thorough the blinds I switched between attempting to locate specific objects and just scanning the sky. While randomly scanning if I found something interesting I'd try to determine what I was seeing. When attempting to locate a specific object I'd do what amateur astromomers have always do. Look for guide stars, point and look, use guide stars again, repeat. Using the fact that the field of view of the binocular is 4.4o degrees was also helpful. Around 4am some thin clouds started coming in, so I'd see what I thought was a wisp of a galaxy or nebula, but then it would move. :)

Yet with all the street lights and horrible light pollution I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. I was generally limited to the area around Cassiopeia. I used the Pleiades (M45) to focus and adjust the diopter on the binoculars. It was low on the horizon but looked great.

I was able to find:
• The Perseus Double Cluster (NGC 869/884).
• The Owl Cluster (NGC 457).
• Andromeda Galaxy (M31).
• The Beehive (M44).
.

I repeatedly tried to find the open cluster NGC 7789. It's listed as being a very large and easy to see object. It had to have been in my field of view, yet I was never able to identified it. I also failed to locate M34 and the galaxy NGC 2403.

While trying to orient myself I got a bit confused whether I was looking at the correct stars in Cassiopeia. Even with the high field of view of the binocular it can sometimes be difficult to be sure what star you're viewing. I kept seeing a reddish hue on one bright star which I assume was not one of the primary constellation stars. Using the software I looked up detailed information and found that that Schedar, one of five primary stars in Cassiopeia, is a Red Supergiant. So even being as color-blind as I am it's still apparent.

Around 5am a very bright object was barely visible to the east, being blocked by the building. Being so bright I was sure it was distant plane. Yet it didn't move. I'd forgotten how truly bright Venus can be. Simply cool. (Update: I discovered that with in nine days Venus will reach it's peak apparent brightness. That explains the exceptional view.)

The clouds got worse and it got very late or should I say early. I'm sure I will be spending time outside again very soon. I also start looking for a real observing site.