Star Log 2022-10-14 Evening (Fairbanks, AK, US)

After about of week and a half of nothing but overcast or nearly overcast skies in Fairbanks, we had a brief window of clear skies for about a day and a half. I wanted to do star gazing on Friday morning, but due to various obligations I couldn't manage to work that around a sensible sleep schedule. But the clear skies lasted long enough that I was able to go out on Friday evening instead.

It is difficult to do stargazing in the evenings in my yard because of all the people walking in and out of the apartment building, and the bright lights when people drive out of their garages. But a friend of mine let me use a deck at his home on the east side of town. He has tall trees which pretty much block out the entire southern and eastern skies, but he has a decent view to the west and to the north, which is the opposite of the situation at my apartment.

I spent a few minutes playing around with the 127mm scope, but wasn't getting far. It still does not have a working target scope — I have one for it, but the target scope is mysteriously missing its primary lens. I tried looking through it without aiming. I saw four or five dim stars with poor clarity, but the view wasn't interesting enough and I decided to move on the 60mm scope.

I didn't make much progress with the 60mm scope either, since it also is missing the targeting scope, which I had taken off for cleaning, and I had not got it put back on yet or centered. Without a scope, it is pretty hard to target anything that isn't close to the horizon, and most of the horizon was blocked by trees.

So, I fell back to my reliable 10x50 binoculars. Most of the skies were bright blue due to the half-moon (bright for night-time, I mean) which made things more difficult, but I pressed forward. With the chair I was using, I had a comfortable view of Altair, so I decided to do a drawing of the FOV around Altair.

=> Sketch of FOV around Altair (10x50 binoculars)

=> Stellarium screenshot of FOV around Altair

After that, I swung my binoculars randomly over to the left a bit, and was suprised to see an interesting arrangement of stars, which I hadn't noticed at all with my unaided eye. A brief look at my Walrecht Planisphere showed that it was the small constellation Delphinus.

=> Sketch of top part of Delphinus (10x50 binoculars)

=> Stellarium screenshot of top part of Delphinus

=> Overview of Altair and Delphinus

According to the Deep Sky book I borrowed from the library, there are a lot of interesting deep sky objects around the sides of the constellation. I'd like to explore that more in the future, as timing and viewing angles allow.

I tried to find M15 again off the end of Pegasus. I found a slightly blurry object which I think might have been it. I'll have to try that one again later with the 60mm scope.

At about 11:30pm, the beach chair I was using suddenly disintegrated — it was a old chair and the canvas finally tore. It was getting rather chilly and late anyway, so I decided to head home.