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I realized today that I only have seven Carbon Stars remaining on the AL Carbon Star challenge. I could complete it within one or two viewing sessions. I believe that my last Carbon Star is in Sagittarius, so I might need to wait a bit before it's visible in the evening, or I could attempt another early morning session to catch it.
Carbon stars took me by surprise. I was not sure how much I would enjoy it, but they can look beautiful with how they shine in a star field with their distinct color. I have marked the following carbon stars as personal favorites:
This means that the time has come to plan for the next observation challenge. I try to always work on two challenges simultaneously as this allows greater flexibility in observing; one list that requires dark skies, and one list that is more forgivable with a partial-bright moon. This allows me to keep enjoying and working towards these goals irregardless of the status of the moon.
I've decided to pursue the Astronomical League's Lunar Observation challenge next. This challenge splits all 100 observations into three categories: naked-eye, binocular, and telescope. A few of the challenges are interesting: requiring various observations within 48/72 hours of a new moon, observing craters at 4/7/10/14 days, and calculating the height of a lunar mountain by the length of its shadow and the elevation of the sun (I'm most excited about this one).
The binocular observations are going to be a challenge for me as I am a novice with binoculars. I took my cheap set of 8x21's outside tonight for a few minutes to practice viewing the moon from different postures and to hold them as steady as possible without much success. The challenge does make allowances for "upgrading" the observation from naked-eye to binocular, or binocular to telescope if you are having too much trouble. I don't want to rely on that, but it's nice to know that option is there.
After practicing with the binoculars, I set about creating an org document with the list of required observations using the same format as my other challenge lists. This will allow me to track and update my progress through org-agenda mode.
Most of these observations require sketching parts of the lunar surface. I might slow down and attempt better sketches of these using better pencils too.