Paul Cézanne's Astronomy Observing Reports

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 [...]

I had a good night collect subs for another M42 attempt (not processed yet) and the forecast was clear for the next night so I left the scope up using its Hibernate mode so I wouldn’t have to realign it. I considered waking up at 5AM to try and get some waning crescent photos. Well, [...]

In the previous posting in this blog, I recounted the tale of how I tried but failed to see the moon occult Epsilon Geminii. Basically, I failed to see it because the clouds moved in right around the time it was supposed to happen.
But how close was it?

I read the Moon Occults Eps Gem posting on cloudy nights with some interest. You see, one part of this astronomy hobby that has always bugged me is that I’m not doing science. I’m just looking at pretty things, or far away things, or things that are hard to see. And sure, observational science is [...]

There are many amazing things in the sky, some are wonderful challenges, some are just beautiful, and some just take your breath away and make you say, “Oh!”
There is a small list of usual suspects that make you say “Oh” when you first see them. You never forget your first rings of Saturn or the [...]

The forecast was good which was unusual. Aside from two days the previous week where other commitments prevented me from observing (I do have an non-astronomy life you know…), the last time I powered on the telescope was January 4th! That’s one bad thing about Celestron’s refusal to put a battery clock in their hand controllers, you [...]

I’m not a big lunar observer. I’ve got nothing against it, but it hasn’t yet fascinated me. Part of the problem is that there is so much there, but much of it, at first glance, is similar to the part right next to it.
Anyway, I was still testing the Burgess CED1 diagonal, this time on [...]

If you are a reader of my blog, you surely already know about the beautiful conjunction that happened today. The crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter were within 2 degrees of each other. On the east coast of the USA, the Moon appeared to the left of Venus. In Asia Pacific, however, they made a smiley face! Here’s [...]

I had hoped that this Friday’s display would have clear weather. I had scoped out Highland Light the day before, to see the sunset point. On Friday it was almost too clear, Thursday’s reds were much, much deeper, but the moon was way too low. I needed a day for it get higher and get [...]