Last night was a nearly new moon. The temperature was uncommonly warm for this time of year1 but that didn’t end up disturbing the seeing too much as we had an exceptionally good night for observing. Combined with a rich field of stars in Taurus and Orion passing during the evening and Padraig and I had the most productive evening yet cataloging 59 stars, 16 of which were not in my original list of targets, but due to being able to see down to 5th magnitude, we were able to grab them.
| Object | Alt | Az | ST | Dec | Error2 |
| λ Tau | 63.8 | 180 | 4:03 | 12.53 | +0.05 |
| ν Tau | 57.6 | 180 | 4:05 | 6.32 | +0.34 |
| ο1 Eri | 44.8 | 180 | 4:11 | -6.48 | +0.35 |
| μ Tau | 60.4 | 180 | 4:15 | 9.12 | +0.24 |
| ο2 Eri | 43.25 | 180 | 4:17 | -8.03 | +0.38 |
| γ Tau | 66.8 | 180 | 4:21 | 15.52 | -0.10 |
| δ1 Tau | 68.85 | 180 | 4:26 | 17.57 | +0.04 |
| υ3 Eri | 17.5 | 180 | 4:25 | -33.78 | +0.24 |
| κ1 Tau | 73.6 | 180 | 4:29 | 22.32 | +0.04 |
| υ Tau | 73.75 | 180 | 4:30 | 22.48 | -0.32 |
| δ3 Tau | 68.8 | 180 | 4:32 | 17.52 | -0.40 |
| θ1 Tau | 67.5 | 180 | 4:34 | 16.22 | +0.35 |
| ε Tau | 70.2 | 180 | 4:34 | 18.92 | -0.25 |
| υ2 Eri | 20.45 | 180 | 4:36 | -30.83 | -0.27 |
| ν Eri | 48.2 | 180 | 4:38 | -3.08 | +0.27 |
| α Tau | 68.3 | 180 | 4:39 | 17.02 | +0.52 |
| 88 Tau | 61.5 | 180 | 4:41 | 10.22 | +0.07 |
| l Eri | 37.4 | 180 | 4:42 | -13.88 | +0.42 |
| c Tau | 63.55 | 180 | 4:43 | 12.27 | -0.23 |
| 54 Eri | 31.35 | 180 | 4:45 | -19.93 | -0.26 |
| τ Tau | 73.7 | 180 | 4:47 | 22.42 | -0.53 |
| π3 Ori | 58.35 | 180 | 4:49 | 7.07 | +0.12 |
| π2 Ori | 60.3 | 180 | 4:49 | 9.02 | +0.12 |
| π4 Ori | 57.0 | 180 | 4:50 | 5.72 | +0.11 |
| ω Eri | 46.3 | 180 | 4:50 | -4.98 | +0.47 |
| α Cam | 61.5 | 0 | 4:54 | 67.22 | +0.89 |
| ο2 Ori | 64.8 | 180 | 4:57 | 13.52 | +0.02 |
| π5 Ori | 53.75 | 180 | 4:57 | 2.47 | 0.03 |
| β Cam | 68.0 | 0 | 4:59 | 60.72 | -0.15 |
| ε Lep | 28.0 | 180 | 5:00 | -23.28 | -0.91 |
| β Eri | 46.7 | 180 | 5:06 | -4.58 | +0.50 |
| λ Eri | 43.0 | 180 | 5:07 | -8.28 | +0.47 |
| μ Lep | 35.4 | 180 | 5:10 | -15.88 | +0.32 |
| β Ori | 43.4 | 180 | 5:11 | -7.88 | +0.32 |
| τ Ori | 44.8 | 180 | 5:15 | -6.47 | -0.36 |
| λ Lep | 37.8 | 180 | 5:17 | -13.48 | -0.31 |
| o Ori | 50.9 | 180 | 5:20 | -0.38 | +0.01 |
| e Ori | 43.8 | 180 | 5:22 | -7.48 | +0.32 |
| γ Ori | 57.7 | 180 | 5:23 | 9.72 | -0.21 |
| β Lep | 30.5 | 180 | 5:25 | -20.78 | -0.03 |
| 32 Ori | 56.7 | 180 | 5:29 | 5.42 | -0.51 |
| δ Ori | 50.8 | 180 | 5:31 | -0.48 | -0.20 |
| φ1 Ori | 60.8 | 180 | 5:35 | 9.52 | +0.03 |
| λ Ori | 61.0 | 180 | 5:35 | 9.72 | -0.21 |
| ι Ori | 45.6 | 180 | 5:36 | 5.68 | +0.22 |
| θ Ori | 46.1 | 180 | 5:36 | -5.18 | +0.24 |
| c Ori | 46.8 | 180 | 5:37 | -4.48 | +0.36 |
| ε Ori | 50.0 | 180 | 5:38 | -1.28 | -0.08 |
| φ2 Ori | 60.6 | 180 | 5:38 | 9.32 | +0.03 |
| ζ Tau | 72.4 | 180 | 5:39 | 21.12 | -0.01 |
| α Col | 17.3 | 180 | 5:40 | -33.98 | +0.09 |
| ζ Ori | 49.55 | 180 | 5:42 | -1.73 | +0.17 |
| γ Lep | 29.1 | 180 | 5:45 | -20.78 | +0.09 |
| ζ Lep | 36.4 | 180 | 5:46 | -14.88 | -0.06 |
| β Col | 15.6 | 180 | 5:47 | -35.68 | +0.09 |
| κ Ori | 41.8 | 180 | 5:48 | -9.48 | +0.19 |
| δ Lep | 30.5 | 180 | 5:50 | -20.78 | +0.09 |
| α Ori | 58.8 | 180 | 5:52 | 7.52 | +0.12 |
| η Lep | 37.3 | 180 | 5:54 | -13.98 | +0.19 |
| Average | +0.07 | ||||
| StDev | 0.31 |
As noted above, this was by far our most productive evening. To drive the point home, here’s the plot that the program I’ve written put together3:
All the data we’d collected previously is on the right whereas last night’s data is the dense section on the left, with the large gap in between the few months of observing that were missed due to weather and illnesses.
And on top of the prodigious number of observations we accumulated, the accuracy was exceptionally good as well with the declination averaging just 0.07º off with a standard deviation of 0.31º. This is significantly better than previous observing nights on the data quality standpoint as well.
As previously noted, 16 of these stars were not ones that were on observing list. But Padraig consistently finds stars that are a bit fainter than what I set out to target. Previously, I’ve had my laptop with Stellarium with me so we could try to figure out what it was before making the measurements, but this time, we simply drew directly on the star charts I’d printed, numbering them to determine later. This allowed us to make numerous observations much more rapidly, so as not to worry about identification first, hence how we were able to get multiple observations within a single minute sometimes. This may become the new methodology as it worked extremely well.