Just so you don’t think I’ve bailed on this site…
\nI’ve been out of town on a couple trips lately and then there’s been the clouds. And the drizzle. And the snow. And trust me, with the longstanding drought, I’m not complaining. In general. But it is a little discouraging for astro observing. When the clouds do clear, seeing (atmospheric turbulence) has been horrible.
\nA whole new section of sky is starting to present itself. Orion is getting ready to take center stage, and I’m trying to psyche myself up to get a nice detailed observation of M42 and do a couple sketches–a wide view, and then a tight view of the trapezium. It’s going to be a booger to do it the way I want to, what with all the detail it has to offer.
\nI was up at 3 this morning, and decided to have a look outside. The sky was spectacular. Orion was high in the south, and to the southeast was a brilliant constellation I had never paid attention to before, Canis Major. It looks like a walking stick figure, and features a very bright star at the head, Sirius. All the bright stars were flickering like morse-code strobes, which, as a naked-eye view can actually be pleasant with the life it adds to the scene.
\nI’ve got a few more old observations to get uploaded, an overview of my tools, and some observing form links.
\nAs the late Porkins once said: “I’ve got it under control….no wait I…aaaaaauuuughhhhh”
\nor words to that effect<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
20041117_01<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":110,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2005\/02\/13\/m34\/","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":0},"title":"Messier 34","author":"jperez1690","date":"February 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"M034","rel":"","context":"In "Deep Sky"","block_context":{"text":"Deep Sky","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/deep-sky\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":82,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2005\/01\/16\/doublemultiple_2\/","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":1},"title":"Zeta Orionis (Struve 774)","author":"jperez1690","date":"January 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Zeta Orionis","rel":"","context":"In "Double Star"","block_context":{"text":"Double Star","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/double-star\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":71,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2005\/01\/01\/orion_constella\/","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":2},"title":"Orion Constellation","author":"jperez1690","date":"January 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Orion","rel":"","context":"In "Constellation"","block_context":{"text":"Constellation","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/constellation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":265,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2006\/08\/19\/m8_lagoon_nebul\/","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":3},"title":"Messier 8 – Lagoon Nebula","author":"jperez1690","date":"August 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"M008","rel":"","context":"In "Deep Sky"","block_context":{"text":"Deep Sky","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/deep-sky\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":419,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2008\/07\/17\/ngc_6210\/","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":4},"title":"NGC 6210","author":"jperez1690","date":"July 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"NGC 6210","rel":"","context":"In "Deep Sky"","block_context":{"text":"Deep Sky","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/deep-sky\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2005\/01\/16\/doublemultiple_3\/","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":5},"title":"Sigma Orionis (Struve 762)","author":"jperez1690","date":"January 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Sigma Orionis","rel":"","context":"In "Double Star"","block_context":{"text":"Double Star","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/double-star\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}