New region (10856) rotating into view in the east (north up, east to left in image). Thin clouds, temperature 74°F, turbulence 6/10, and no wind here in Louisville, CO. Below white light image taken with Stellarvue A1010, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Canon 300D camera.
A nice prominence visible on the western limb in halpha. Below image taken with Solarview50 h-alpha telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Canon 300D camera.
As mentioned previously, conditions Saturday evening were quite good. Here is an image I took of Saturn around 11:49 pm MST. Image taken with Nexstar11, 2.5X Powermate, and Toucam 740K webcam, turbulence ~7/10, clear, excellent transparency, temperature about 4-5 °F.
Around 2:42 am, I took an image of Jupiter using the same equipment and about the same conditions. Turbulence was maybe 5 to 6/10 as it was not high up.
Last evening I met up with some members of the local astronomy clubs in Boulder, Longmont, and Fort Collins, Coloarado at Crow Valley Campground near Briggsdale. It was quite cold, around 3 °F, no wind, clear sky, turbulence 7/10, and fantastic transparency. Unfortunately, I forgot my counterweight, dew shield, and dew heater. Lucky for me Dan was there and let me use his catalytic heater to clear off the corrector plate so I was able to do some imaging. It was pretty frustrating though as the clutches would slip now and then from the unbalanced load.
Compare this to one I took on Jan 29 — excellent transparency makes a difference!
NGC 2903 is one of the brightest galaxies in the constellation Leo. Messier managed to miss this one. According to some reports, he was tracking a couple comets nearby. It has a bright central core and several brighter patches. Image below taken with Nexstar11, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Stellacam2 video camera. Stack of 100, 8.5 second exposures, dark subtracted. Clear skies, wind gusts to 10 mph, temperature of 25 °F, turbulence 6/10, location Louisville, CO.
Last evening the sky was clear, transparency was very good, and turbulence was good as well (6/10), and the temperature was around 25°F. Image was taken with Celestron Nexstar11, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips Toucam 740K webcam. Cassini division is quite prominent now. Some banding was visible in the eyepiece as well.
