Cold Winter Night Sky.
The forecast for the night was mostly clear, cloudy, and then clear again. The waxing gibbous moon is getting brighter (94% illuminated). For the first of the night, I programed the “Plan my Night” sequence on the Vespera telescopes to first observe the moon, then later as the moon moves to the west picked some deep sky observation targets in parts of the sky away from the moon. While the sky is cloudy, the telescopes won’t add any images to the multi-night image stacks. Then when it clears up again, the telescopes will resume with the observation plan. I also set up a Nikon D9 camera with a 8-15 mm fisheye lens to take a sequence of images of the night sky with the full Vespera family of telescopes in the foreground. These images were then used to create the following time-lapse video. The moon is the bright object. You can watch the Orion constellation travel across the sky. Some jet trails, and lots of fast-moving clouds during the middle of the night. A little before dawn the sky cleared up again for the telescopes to resume observation of the last target of the night. The telescopes automatically close before the sun rises. The time-lapse video is best viewed in the dark and expanded to full scale. Images captured by the telescopes to follow.
