Yesterday promised a beautiful night. Temperatures in the low 70’s falling to mid 60’s overnight, clear skies, and no moon. So I packed up the quadrant and met Hugo at Brommelsiek to do some observing.
Unfortunately, despite the skies being clear, there was a lot of humidity and spotting stars past 3rd magnitude was challenging. Hugo was only able to stay a little over an hour, but I stayed out almost 4, and only had 15 observations at the end of the night.
As usual, details below the fold.
| Object | Alt | Az | ST | Dec | Error1 |
| ε Vir | 62.1 | 180 | 13:03 | 10.82 | 0.13 |
| α Vir | 40.1 | 180 | 13:25 | -11.17 | 0.01 |
| ζ Vir | 50.55 | 180 | 13:36 | -0.73 | 0.13 |
| η Boo | 69.3 | 180 | 13:59 | 18.02 | 0.38 |
| α Boo | 70.5 | 180 | 14:17 | 19.22 | -0.05 |
| α Lib | 35.65 | 180 | 14:54 | -15.63 | -0.41 |
| β Lib | 41.9 | 180 | 15:17 | -9.38 | -0.003 |
| α Ser | 58.2 | 180 | 15:47 | 6.92 | -0.49 |
| δ Sco | 28.6 | 180 | 15:56 | -22.68 | 0.06 |
| β Sco | 31.6 | 180 | 16:03 | -19.68 | -0.13 |
| δ Oph | 47.7 | 180 | 16:13 | -3.58 | -0.11 |
| ε Oph | 46.65 | 180 | 16:19 | -4.63 | -0.06 |
| σ Sco | 26.1 | 180 | 16:26 | -25.18 | -0.41 |
| α Sco | 25.3 | 180 | 16:29 | -25.98 | -0.45 |
| ζ Oph | 40.95 | 180 | 16:37 | -10.33 | -0.24 |
| Average | -0.13 | ||||
| StDev | 0.21 |
This set of observations also marks a minor milestone as it include ε Oph, which was the very first observation made using this instrument. This means that observations have now spanned a full 360º of sky. There’s obviously a large gap where the weather didn’t cooperate this winter, but at this point, I’ll start having a lot more observations of stars that have been previously observed.
At present, there are 165 stars that have been cataloged, and mapped out, the data looks like this:
Lilies war starts a week from today and the hope is I’ll be able to make observations there, especially since the oppositions of both Jupiter and Saturn for the year occur during the war. At present, the long range forecast is calling for clearing skies on the 10th, which is the night Jupiter will be at opposition, but this is the midwest, so things change frequently, but here’s hoping.