OBSERVING REPORT FOR AUG 2, 2015

Location:  Little Lepreau, NB, Canada...on the front porch.

Date Time:  Aug 2, 2015  2200-0100hrs.

Weather:  12-10C, windy at first with some high wispy clouds.  By 2315hrs, all clouds were gone and not a breath of wind, that's when the dew and mosquitoes became a factor.

Attendance:  Myself

Equipment:  Big scope, small scope with 19mm, 12mm and 9 mm eyepieces.  Canon Xsi DSLR camera with 75-300mm lens and attached to both scopes at prime focus.

Objective:  To try out a new imaging technique shown to me by Paul O at the COW Star Party.

Highlights:

• International Space Station flyover at 2218hrs observed.  Moving across the northern sky from the NW to the NE.  Confirmed at Heavens-above.com
• Aligned big scope on Altair which was high in the SE at 2230hrs.
• A very bright waning Gibbous Moon was a major factor by around 2300hrs.  It really washed out most of the fainter Messier objects.
• M57 The Ring Nebula in Lyra was viewed and imaged.  It was almost straight overhead, just after sundown.  Best view was with 9mm eyepiece and averted vision.  It looked like a ghostly smoke ring.
• Viewed both double stars but imaged only half of the "double double star" Epsilon Lyra.  Found out later that the magnification of the big scope didn't allow for both double stars to be in the field of view when imaging.  Did see both double stars in the 19mm eyepiece field of view.
• Saturn viewed and imaged.  At least 3 Moons were visible in 19mm eyepiece.  
• M71 or NGC 6838 in Sagitta was viewed and imaged for the first time.  It showed up as a dim mist in the 19mm eyepiece.
• Delphinus was viewed and imaged, although it was kind of hard to see as it was close to the very bright Moon.
• M13 was viewed, but not imaged, mostly because the bright Moon made it difficult to find through the camera eyepiece.  It didnt even show up well in the eyepiece of the big scope. Looked like a bright, blotchy mist.
• No shooting stars and no satelites were seen, except for the space station.

Images:

Was hard to see as it was near the very bright Waning Gibbous Moon.

This is half of the double double star system.

Cropped and Processed image.

Unprocessed image.

Cropped, but otherwise unprocessed image.