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Star Party at Ottawa Lake, WI on a rare 60 degree April night

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It was enjoyable to gather at Ottawa Lake State Park this past Thursday, 4/13 for a star party under darker skies.  With enough time to pack and prep, it is amazing to see how many telescopes I can fit into a 4 door car and then set up for the star party in time for sunset. I'm glad I did, as we all got to look through these scopes. Pictured above are: Unistellar eVscope 114mm imaging reflector, for live stacking (EAA). Favorite view, M51, as well as the Black Eye Galaxy: Vixen FL90s 810mm refractor on a manual mount with a telrad sight. Favorite view: Cruising through the Cancer Constellation, 25mm Takahashi Mewlon 210 uncorrected Dall Kirkman on a Meade LX85 Go To. Favorite view: M3, noted to add a reducer next time. Vixen AX103s reduced imaging refractor (575mm), connected via ASIair Plus for live stacking (EAA). Favorite sight: M101 live stack of just 15 minutes. Another person at the star party also brought a 12-inch Orion dobsonion, with a Nexus DSC pro and a selection of nic
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Hercules, Atlas and more, during the Waning Gibbous

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I was having a bit of fun browsing along the terminator line early in the morning with a Takahashi Mewlon 210 and enjoying the calm and warming weather. My favorite view of the night is of the Hercules and Atlas craters. You'll see the difference in how these craters look, vs the craters of Aristoteles and Eudoxus, which are not as dynamically showcased due to not as dramatic lighting conditions near the terminator line. The Hercules and Atlas craters are 30km apart. Atlas is 2km deep, and about 3.2 billion years old. Hercules G is a smaller crater inside the floor of the Hercules, which is between 1.1 and 3.2 billion years old. If you look closely you can also see Atlas E, which is a 58km ghost crater, or a crater that was there before Atlas even. Enjoy the other shots as well, including Aristoteles and Eudoxus. I'll do crater verification via Virtual Moon Atlas which I'll run when I process images or browse with an eyepiece, to confirm all of the many craters. I wasn'
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Starting to cruise the clear skies this week: M105, the other Leo trio, and more.

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We're just getting started on a stretch of clear sky this week + excellent temps, so what more could you ask for? Well, sleep - it's going to be a rough work week to also get through, but enjoy the stars while you can! As we work to bring Electronically Assisted Astronomy (EAA) options to the Milwaukee Astronomical Society, to allow minimal post-processing to get photos of deep sky objects like these, I wanted to mark a few cool objects I was able to observe using the Unistellar eVscope which live stacks my images as we look at them, and essentially gives me a photo output in just a few minutes using no further image processing, which I'll share below. This scope will be making a lot of trips out to the club this year once again, and many got to experience c/2022 e3 with this scope during winter while huddled inside where it was warm!  I took these photos in my backyard, in Milwaukee, under Bortle 8 skies, which are brighter skies than at the MAS so it's an example of h
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Hello World!

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Hello World Welcome to the Psychwolf Moon blog, a merging of writing, astronomy / astrophotography and music. This will be a fun creative and unleashed space to leave updates on all of the above, and a little bit in between. As many of you may know my callsign as Psychwolf, this blog is no surprise, many, many concerts later. The moon has risen into the name, with my second hobby rekindled later in life following the brief concert-free experience of Covid-19, lockdowns, and my late nights listening to psych music while taking photos of the stars. And here we hard, a year afterward, and the world has changed forever. You may also know me as Ryno, a marketing operations manager and co-worker, or Milwaukee Astronomical Society officer too.  Whatever brought you here, it's in this space that I hope to connect with all listening, or else, just document all of the fun, cool, weird and interesting ramblings in this world! Also, say hi to my cats, Patrick (fat cat) and Amelia (black cat)!
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