Astro log: Sept. 18th, 2009

Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 15, and 10 mm eyepieces and the broadband and ultrablock filters.

New objects observed: M28, Lagoon Nebula (M8) & NGC 6530, M20 (kinda), M21, M54.

Notes:

Another night of below average conditions. The only reason I went out for a little while in the evening was to try out the viewing shelter I'd build since my mom was nice enough to come and help by making the curtains for it (more on that later), and I decided to do some more observing around Sagittarius. From my house, Sagittarius is pretty low in the sky at best and when it's visible is between the neighbors' house and the garage, so I only have a relatively brief window of observation. To compound the problem, there's a telephone pole and a mess of wires that can cause obstruction and there's an air force base to the south that makes the skyglow worse.

With all that, I observed five or six new objects last night, which is pretty good. M28 and M21 were both pretty dim, but I'm not sure if that's more to do with the poor transparency than the light pollution. I saw some nebulosity with the Lagoon Nebula, but with M20 I only saw the star cluster portion. I'll try them again when conditions are better and see if I can get a better view of them.

 
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