A backyard OR
Richard Navarrete
A Backyard OR
I lucked out with some backyard clear skies on February 20 and 21 after a few weeks of rain and clouds. I recently purchased a new-to-me Explore Scientific 4 inch apochromatic refractor so I was glad of the chance to get views of Jupiter and stars. Seeing was very good both nights, and I was able to get some excellent views of Jupiter and its moon. The images were sharp and contrasty. I was able to discern some darker spots on the two main equatorial bands, and three smaller bands on the southern side, and four on the northern side of the planet. I enjoy looking at the planets and don’t know the proper nomenclature, so I just soaked in the view. Castor was an easy split, and the third member was easily seen. I didn’t know that Castor was a triple star until recently!
STFA 10 is a naked eye double with white and golden members. LDS 2246 appeared white and cream colored, and 75 Tauri are yellow and orange. As a bonus the double star 80 Tauri was also in a low power field. The other object I observed was NGC 1647, a loosely rectangular open cluster of magnitude 6.4. At 44.5x I counted 37 stars, and I’m sure more would be seen from a darker site without a four day old moon in the sky. Just north of center of the cluster is AG311, a double with members that are faintly orange to my eye.
There are a few other targets in this essay, M1, the Hyades, and another open cluster, but I’ll save those for when I’m observing at a darker site
The following night I set up the 4 inch refractor in the lower yard to observe the five day old moon. I use the book ‘Discover the Moon’ by Lacroux and Legrande for my lunar observing sessions. The views again were very nice, and I won’t list everything I observed, but my favorite features were the crater Theophilus with its three peaks of decreasing height, the Altai Scarp, and the funny crater Polybius K which has a straight edge on one side. It looked like a small, dark, hair in my eyepiece.
It was fun spending time in my backyard, even if it isn’t very dark, and enjoying the wonders of the night sky.
Screen grab from Sky Safari (sorry the Orientation isn’t the same)
Ted Hauter
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Steve Gottlieb
On Feb 23, 2026, at 8:36 PM, 'Richard Navarrete' via The Astronomy Connection (TAC) <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
A Backyard OR
I lucked out with some backyard clear skies on February 20 and 21 after a few weeks of rain and clouds. I recently purchased a new-to-me Explore Scientific 4 inch apochromatic refractor so I was glad of the chance to get views of Jupiter and stars. Seeing was very good both nights, and I was able to get some excellent views of Jupiter and its moon. The images were sharp and contrasty. I was able to discern some darker spots on the two main equatorial bands, and three smaller bands on the southern side, and four on the northern side of the planet. I enjoy looking at the planets and don’t know the proper nomenclature, so I just soaked in the view. Castor was an easy split, and the third member was easily seen. I didn’t know that Castor was a triple star until recently!
I have a small two-level yard with lots of tall trees, and in order to see different parts of the sky I need to either pick-up and move a scope or set-up another scope in another spot. I decided to set-up an Orion 120ST refractor on a Svbony 255 alt-az mount on the lower part of my yard to observe some double stars in Taurus. I went to my current observing project, the essays in ‘Celestial Sampler’ by Sue French, and started on ‘Looking the Bull in the Face’ on page 44. She has three pairs of doubles listed 1.25 degrees west of Aldebaran. These were easy to find and made such a pretty field I decided to make a quick sketch of the area.
<Taurus doubles 2.jpg>
<taurus doubles SS.jpg>
screen grab from Sky Safari - sorry, I didn't rotate the images to match
STFA 10 is a naked eye double with white and golden members. LDS 2246 appeared white and cream colored, and 75 Tauri are yellow and orange. As a bonus the double star 80 Tauri was also in a low power field. The other object I observed was NGC 1647, a loosely rectangular open cluster of magnitude 6.4. At 44.5x I counted 37 stars, and I’m sure more would be seen from a darker site without a four day old moon in the sky. Just north of center of the cluster is AG311, a double with members that are faintly orange to my eye.
There are a few other targets in this essay, M1, the Hyades, and another open cluster, but I’ll save those for when I’m observing at a darker site
The following night I set up the 4 inch refractor in the lower yard to observe the five day old moon. I use the book ‘Discover the Moon’ by Lacroux and Legrande for my lunar observing sessions. The views again were very nice, and I won’t list everything I observed, but my favorite features were the crater Theophilus with its three peaks of decreasing height, the Altai Scarp, and the funny crater Polybius K which has a straight edge on one side. It looked like a small, dark, hair in my eyepiece.
It was fun spending time in my backyard, even if it isn’t very dark, and enjoying the wonders of the night sky.
Richard
Screen grab from Sky Safari (sorry the Orientation isn’t the same)
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<Taurus doubles 2.jpg><taurus doubles SS.jpg>
