I currently live in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago. I actually live much closer to the Wisconsin border than the Chicago downtown area putting my vantage point about 45 miles NW from the Michigan lakefront and less than 20 miles south of the WI state line. With the exception of small villages and towns, I live in farm country which means the overall light pollution is minimal. Excluding a couple annoying street lights, my neighborhood is relatively dark at night – a plus for observational astronomy.
My expectations are many though simple in nature: I am interested in avidly pursuing amateur observational astronomy from my backyard and on camping trips on a regular basis. From my backyard, I have about a ½ acre of grass with various views that will give me close to a 360 degree vantage point to the heavens above. Younger trees will give way to accessible horizons and dark nights should give way to better views of space and time.
I am awaiting a new Orion SkyQuest XT10 IntelliScope with Object Locator. With a 250mm aperture and a focal length of 1200mm, I should be able to enjoy deep space objects up to 14.7 stellar magnitude. Though I am very interested in navigating the constellations to find objects on my own accord, I am happy to have a semi automated computer software assisted object locator to help when it becomes difficult to find a specific object. Using software from Starry Night Pro and my Dell laptop, I will have access to over 14,000 celestial objects.
I look forward to the hobby of searching out and cataloging objects from the NGC, IC and Messier catalogs as well as other essential viewing items like local planets and binary star systems. I look forward to attempting to map out portions of our moon and tracking the satellites of Jupiter. Using sketch books and colored pencils, I will sketch the images I find noting the time, place and tools used to observe a particular object. When appropriate, I will photograph, using short exposures, celestial objects like the lunar surface, planets and other objects if possible. Though I will be keeping a separate written journal of my observations, I intend to update this blog when possible with pertinent and noteworthy information.
My expectations are many though simple in nature: I am interested in avidly pursuing amateur observational astronomy from my backyard and on camping trips on a regular basis. From my backyard, I have about a ½ acre of grass with various views that will give me close to a 360 degree vantage point to the heavens above. Younger trees will give way to accessible horizons and dark nights should give way to better views of space and time.
I am awaiting a new Orion SkyQuest XT10 IntelliScope with Object Locator. With a 250mm aperture and a focal length of 1200mm, I should be able to enjoy deep space objects up to 14.7 stellar magnitude. Though I am very interested in navigating the constellations to find objects on my own accord, I am happy to have a semi automated computer software assisted object locator to help when it becomes difficult to find a specific object. Using software from Starry Night Pro and my Dell laptop, I will have access to over 14,000 celestial objects.
I look forward to the hobby of searching out and cataloging objects from the NGC, IC and Messier catalogs as well as other essential viewing items like local planets and binary star systems. I look forward to attempting to map out portions of our moon and tracking the satellites of Jupiter. Using sketch books and colored pencils, I will sketch the images I find noting the time, place and tools used to observe a particular object. When appropriate, I will photograph, using short exposures, celestial objects like the lunar surface, planets and other objects if possible. Though I will be keeping a separate written journal of my observations, I intend to update this blog when possible with pertinent and noteworthy information.
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