2024-04-01

• Condition: G6
• Location: Home, Spearfish: 44.49, -103.87

Exhausted after a ten hour drive home from Idaho Falls today. I had to fight against my exhaustion to go out tonight; and, as usual, I'm glad I did. It was refreshing, relaxing, and peaceful once I got the equipment setup.

08:46PM

• Target: NGC 1788, vdB 33[1]
• Const: Orion
• RaDec: 05h06m -3.2
• Type: Nebula
• Scope: ST80
• Setting: 31x, AV
• Image: ../images/2024-04-01_NGC1788.jpg[2]

Seems to be more easily seen without the Ultrablock filter. AV does not do much for the size. Getting the impression of a brighter center (maybe a star); because of this it almost has a similar appearance to a faint galaxy with a bright core.

[1] NGC 1788, vdB 33 (ID)

[2] ../images/2024-04-01_NGC1788.jpg

09:02PM

• Target: NGC 1973 with NGC 1975 & 1977[1]
• Const: Orion
• RaDec: 05h35m -4.44
• Type: Nebula
• Scope: ST80
• Setting: 31x, Ultrablock, AV
• Image: ../images/2024-04-01_NGC1977_NGC1973.jpg[2]

Ultrablock filter makes a drammatic impact here. NGC 1977 is much easier to see. I had trouble seeing NGC 1973 until I noticed that my eyes were constantly drawn to M42. I tried moving M42 outside of the FoV, and this seemed to have helped. I could eventually detect a noise around a star to the NW of NGC 1977 (the noise fell outside of the stars airy disk) I wish I could say the same for NGC 1975, but I could not get a confident observation of it.

[1] NGC 1973 with NGC 1975 & 1977 (ID)

[2] ../images/2024-04-01_NGC1977_NGC1973.jpg