Paul Cézanne's Astronomy Observing Reports

I was quite worried about grabbing the dim galaxy M91 in my quest to see all 110 Messier objects with my Canon 15×50IS binoculars. And this was with good reason, you M91 had alreday eluded me a short while ago, twice actually but the second attempt was pretty short.
So you can imagine my surprise, when [...]

One of my current goals is to see all 110 of the Messier object with my Canon 15×50IS binoculars and I’m closing in on my last few. It turns out that I had 1 more in Virgo to find (not countly the pesky M91 which will take a special effort to find), 1 in Coma [...]

When my wife is away I often sleep poorly, I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t get back to sleep. One obvious advantage is that this can be some prime observing time! I knew this would happen so I planned out a few Messier object to grab and had my [...]

Last night I almost made it completely through the Virgo Cluster with my Canon 15×50IS binoculars. I posted my experiences in the Cloudy Nights binoculars forum where I asked, “Just how difficult is M91 anyway?” More than one person reported making the find, but all assured me that it was a hard one, probably the [...]

The Virgo Cluster is spoken with dread for those doing a Messier Marathon. It isn’t that people are afraid they won’t get the galaxies, for the most part, that’s easy they say. The problem you face is getting too many galaxies. You see, the Virgo Cluster contains between 1,300 and 2,000 galaxies. With our modest [...]

I came across this posting on the iOptron yahoo groups list. I was writing up the reply when I figured I could get a blog posting out of it for those not on that list. (And you should join, it is a good list.) But anyway, a list member asked:
I’m new to these mounts. I’ve [...]

Most astrophotographers don’t take pictures of the Full Moon, quite frankly because the partial moons have such interesting shadows along the terminator. But after I shot the moon rising over the Pilgrim Monument I set up the telescope to both observe Saturn and shoot the Full Moon once it got higher in the sky.

I’ll say I got lucky on this one. I noticed what compass point the moon would rise it, saw where I wolud need to be on the road in the dunes to see the moonrise and the Pilgrim Monument (yes, the Pilgrims land in Provincetown before moving onto Plymouth!) and then I headed out since [...]