Astronomy Observing Reports: OBSERVING REPORT FOR JANUARY 30, 2021

Sunday, January 31, 2021

OBSERVING REPORT FOR JANUARY 30, 2021

Location: Prince of Wales, NB, Canada

Date Time: January 30, 2021 1900-2100hrs

Weather: Bitter cold, -10C, 60% humidity, no wind, at times breezy, mostly clear, some haziness around the eastern horizon when the waning gibbous Moon appeared, around 1945hrs. Weather patterns had Arctic air from Greenland coming straight south, over our area on this evening, and for the next day or so.

Equipment: Canon Rebel t3 attached to a Canadian Telescopes 80 ED/APO at prime focus. Images processed with Photo Shop.

Attendance: Myself

Objective: To image three comets, in the magnitude 10/11 range, that were in the sky, before the very bright, 94% illuminated waning gibbous Moon was set to rise at 1945 hrs.

Report:

Set up the telescope, around 1920 and aligned on Deneb, a Pegasus star and Mars. Mars was high enough to make imaging difficult. It was so cold, I had to stop several time to warm up, which made imaging all the comets before the waning gibbous Moon rose impossible.

ISO 1600, 30s. Un-cropped, enhanced.

I searched for three comets and the first one was Comet 88P Howell, which was very low in the west. The comet was reportedly magnitude 10, and I imaged that area of the sky, but the comet did not show up in 30 second exposure images.
Imaged the area of sky, well below Mars, for Comet 141P Machholz. Just above the treeline, to the south-west, the comet did show up, just barely in a single shot, 30s image.

ISO 1600, 30s. Image cropped and enhanced.

Imaged the area of sky, to the north-east of Sirius. By this time, the waning gibbous Moon had risen enough to greatly affect observing and imagines. Good images of that area of the sky were attained, but the comet was not discernible.
Then decided to image some nearby Messier objects, M46 and M47. These deep sky objects showed up well, despite the glowing Moon nearby.