Friday night at the Whirlpool

I can never seem to get enough of M51, the beautiful Whirlpool Galaxy, and it was irresistible on another Friday night impromptu stargazing session.

C/2022 E3 (ZTF) Martian fly-by

One reason I don’t observe from home often is the narrow swath of clear sky I have through my wooded lot, even in the best conditions. But here, I caught Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) just in time!

The Planets Are Back!

It’s September 2022 and the planets are back! Well, at least at a reasonable hour. I posted a Jupiter image in the previous blog entry but I was up pretty late to catch that. Saturn is high in the sky at around 11:00 PM now, with Jupiter a couple of hours behind, and Mars after that. I got one of my best images yet of Saturn.

Equipment update: Nexstar+ controller failure

Details of how I repaired the LCD display on my NexStar+ hand controller.