Astronomy journal, star atlas, reference book, and binoculars.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks

After a cold, cloudy, and schedule conflicted January and February, March got off to a good binocular astronomy start thanks to an invitation from Bill Barlow to join him for observing at Lewis-Young park in Louisburg, Kansas Friday, March 1, on a clear if somewhat...

Christmas Vacation Astronomy

Christmas Vacation Astronomy

December was not an ideal month for astronomy. It was mostly cloudy, and my next door neighbor's Christmas Vacation style holiday lights are bright enough to cast shadows. 😆He is an awesome neighbor, though, very considerate about lights when I'm observing, and tis...

Pi Andromedae

Pi Andromedae

My happy discovery of Pi Andromedae occurred on Wednesday 15 November 2023 while I was making observations of the double star STFA 1, which is near Delta Andromedae, just to the south of Pi, following up on this Cloudy Nights topic about using hand held binoculars to...

The Neglected Lizard

The Neglected Lizard

A list of the least observed constellations in northern skies would surely include Lacerta the Lizard, added to the celestial canon by Johannes Hevelius in 1687. Maybe THE least observed? How could that be determined, I wonder? 🤔The above image is a detail from Plate...

The Oberwerk 20×70 ED Ultra In Its Glory

The Oberwerk 20×70 ED Ultra In Its Glory

On wednesday evening, September 20, 2023, among other binocular astronomy adventures I observed a hexagonal asterism pointed out by fellow Cloudy Nights member aznuge with an APM 20x80 binocular I had been using to log Cygni 100 list doubles (back left in image)....

48 Cygni Star Field

48 Cygni Star Field

I observed the 48 Cygni starfield Thursday evening, September 14, 2023, from the east side of my yard because Cygnus is migrating to the west now and passing behind the dreaded pines of roam near my driveway. (Massive pine trees that block the western side of the sky...

A Cygni 100 Bow Shock Star

A Cygni 100 Bow Shock Star

Work on the Cygni 100 catalog is underway, complete with its own numbering system. An unexpected challenge in writing the catalog, however, is the seemingly endless amount of information found while looking up details for each double star. Sort of a nice problem to...

The Wings of the Goose

The Wings of the Goose

The original Cygni 100 list created last summer (2022) did not include Mu1 Cygni because of the magnitude difference between the A and D components. A parameter for the first list was to limit the difference to less than 2x because a significant magnitude difference...

The Cygni 100

The Cygni 100

Last summer (2022) a Cloudy Nights friend had a conversation with me about the relative merits of telescopes versus binoculars for observing double stars, binocular double stars by that time having become something of a passion of mine. 😉My friend pointed out that...

Really Old Stars

Really Old Stars

I have the book Searching for the Oldest Stars: Ancient Relics from the Early Universe written by professional astronomer Anna Frebel checked out from the library, and wondered if it might be possible to view an ancient star with binoculars from my yard. To my...