05:05:00

It’s the first morning I’ve tried my hand at any pre-dawn observing – any legitimate pre-dawn observing anyway. I knew this morning was gonig to be clear and have excellent viewing conditions so I set my alarm (and coffee pot) for 4am.

-I have to say, pre-dawn observing (as opposed to early-evening/nighttime) is superior in every way! The sky (seems) darker, it’s MUCH quieter (traffic, everything); everything seems much more calm and more appropriate for observing – I love it! My hot cup of coffee perfectly offsets the cool chill of the morning, and ‘Alison Krauss’ radio on Pandora compliments the quietness – and the deep sky images – quite well.

-I’m imaging M42 (Orion Nebula) right now and am going to move on to Jupiter real soon – as soon as I finish these darks. I’m imaging M42 with the Canon and will use the webcam for Jupiter.

-Bonus: pre-dawn imaging gives the benefit of getting to watch the beautiful sunrise while I wait for the post-processing and stacking to finish. I can also update the website – basically get everything done in one session.

Quick update: The weather station is complete and installed and working great! It’s automatically logging pressure and temp data and plotting daily graphs. Last this I have to do is have the website automatically update the graphs and have an archive available. The light sensor and webcam are the next additions.