Location: St. Croix Observatory (SCO)
Date: 2024-09-28/29
Time: 7:30 PM – 12:40 AM ADT
Equipment: 10" Meade SCT
Eyepieces: SvBony 10-30mm Zoom eyepiece (used 30mm)
Magnification: x83
Transparency: Good (3)
Seeing: Excellent (1)
| Time | SQM | Temp |
| 9:47 PM | 21.07 | 9° C |
It was a great night at SCO. No wind was evidenced in the mirror-like water in the south and east and it was cloudless throughout the session. When we first arrived, an owl was hooting quite close by. FLIES! And we didn't bring repellent so it was an interesting evening to determine who won out - us or the flies. At 10:05 a flock of geese could be heard to the south but they didn't surprise us by landing in the southbound as they did on September 14th.
This was to be a Messier night but I had challenges with alignment of the scope and generally just finding these faint fuzzies.
At 9:48, following failed attempts to find M110 near the Andromeda Galaxy and M9 near the star Sabik in Ophiuchus/Serpens Cauda, I finally found one Messier - M30! It had a small dense core and a wider diffuse area. After looking at it for a while, I noticed at least 3 lines of stars emanating outward from the core. The star field had a few bright stars of note - one at 2 o'clock and 2 others in the east.
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Constellation: Capricornus Type: Globular Cluster Magnitude: 7.3 Distance: 26.1 kly Size: 11.0' |