Old Observing Sheet and Globulars in Andromeda

 Today over at Eadsy Astronomy, I posted my old observing sheet that I made in 2008, modifying from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada's observing sheet. In addition I updated a posted from my blog here from November 2024 about hunting down globulars in Andromeda. It includes links to many of the web's posts and info on doing this!  Head on over and take a look at t hese two posts LINK.  Sign up for a free membership and get email notifications whenever I add content to Eadsy Astronomy! Want to shout out to Kendra Taylar, Shane Smith and Richard Wolf-Jacobson for joining! 

From Phil Harrington's Cosmic Challenge Globular clusters in M31 December 2018 LINK

Eadsy Astronomy Weekly Newsletter for November 16th to the 22nd, 2025.

 I've posted the weekly Eadsy Astronomy Newsletter over at Eadsy Astronomy at this LINK. Some key talking points are Uranus at opposition with two findercharts to help you locate the planet. Neptune finderchart and more common DSO's and great less familiar DSO's to go and take a look at. 

Remember, if you're not a member of Eadsy Astronomy it is easy to join and you'll receive email updates when they occur. As a FYI, I will be interviewing Richard Wolf-Jacobson, the creator of PiFinder the last week of November and will share that video interview. It will have the interview and then a bonus section of members only.  I'll be announcing more interviews in the next two weeks so stay tuned as I add that feature into Eadsy Astronomy. 

Observing Day, Actual Video of How I determine where I am Going Tonight

 The other day I did a post on how I determine, based on the weather where I am going to observe. Well, today is my observing day for this week due to weather and I am heading out. It will not be the best of conditions as clouds come in around 1am to 2am but by then the last quarter moon is up and I'll be heading home after 4-5 hours of observing! 

If you are interested in knowing where I decided to go and why, and the sites I used to determine that, head over to Eadsy Astornomy LINK and take a look. Please feel free to join, its free to join and then you receive email whenever I update the site which is usually daily. All content is free there. Here is a sample of two of the sites I use to determine where to go. Click on them and you'll see the conditions for tonight out at either my Lakeside or my Knolls locations I observe from. 

How I Image my Sketches, transfer them to my computer and process and prepare them for publicaiton on my Blog or Paetron Pages.

 As the title describes, I've made a 3 video series that shows how after I have created my sketches, how I take an image of them, transfer them to my computer and then refine and process them in GIMP. I show how I round and brighten my stars, how I sometimes enhance an image to make it match more of what I saw at the eyepiece and how I prepare them for publication. I hope this helps and if you have ideas on how to improve, I'd love to hear them in the comments either here or over at Paetron. The videos are housed on Paetron at EadsyAstronomy. You can join for free and receive email updates when I post there. If you're able and want to donate to support me sharing such content, please feel free to do so there. Again though, all the content is free. The Tutorial is at this LINK over on EadsyAstronomy. 

Here is NGC 5557 a elliptical galaxy in Bootes that I sketched on July 23, 2025 at Cedar Mountain Wildnerness. The first is the raw sketch and the second is after I processed it in GIMP. I explain and show the differences and the reasons for the adjustments in my video. 

Here are my observing notes: At 317x in the 7mm XWA 100 degree FOV eyepiece in my 17.5" f/4.4 dob, the galaxy shows as a round object with a very bright inner core and a stellar nucleus. The outer halo is very faint on the edge. 

I made adjustments in GIMP to this sketch as I was happy with the actual galaxy I had sketched and I used GIMP to enhance the image so it matched what I saw in the eyepiece. More on the video! 

Sun releases a X5.16 Solar Flare from AR (Active Region) 4274

 The Sun is still showing it is quite active of late. If you have a solar telescope like I do, please take it out and look up, weather permitting. Don't EVER look at the Sun with your naked eye, unprotected. A solar telescope is made to do just that, look at the Sun. 

This morning at around 5:00 a.m. EST, the Sun released a X5.16 solar flare. Want to learn more about and learn the various levels of solar flares and what they mean? Head over to this LINK at Eadsy Astronomy and learn more about this flare and other flares there. 

This image from GOES-19 Suvi shows the flare and the correspoinding AR or Active Regions. Again, if you have a solar telescope it is well worth looking  at the Sun, weather permitting right now. 

How I use weather sites to determine when and where to Observe

 Okay another post over at Eadsy Astronomy that shares in video how I basically go about using a variety of weather sites to determine when and where I am going to observe. This week, possible Thursday night .Next week, right now Wednesday is looking good but I've commited to presenting on Sketching at the Salt Lake Astronomical Club (which it wasn't on new moon!).  We'll see how the weather turns out. 

From this session I show that based on my favorite observing sites I use, I am either going to my observing spot #2 off of Forest Road 006 south of Vernon Utah or to Top View on Toon Road off the Pony Express road. I'd prefer FR006 that night but we'll see tomorrow on where the forecast is. Here is the LINK if you want to head over and view the video. It is free to look at. In the future however, I'll make a post there in general terms but the videos will be free for members of Eadsy Astronomy. It is free to be a member and have access, and if you enjoy the content I post, and can help make a monthly contribution to help me cover my time in posting stuff up, it would be appreciated and I'll give you a shout out in each post!