On nights like last night observing mag 12-13 galaxies only 15 degrees away
from the 5-day-old moon, I found myself needing more time eye-engaged at the
eyepiece to get back some of the night vision lost from the moonlight-filled
sky. It takes me about a minute staring into the eyepiece to start seeing
the fainter objects.
Peter Natscher
Monterey
On 4/14/05 1:01 PM, "Jay Freeman" <Jay.Freeman@No-Spam> wrote:
> Mark Wagner wrote:
>
>> I also found that it was not too bad observing galaxies with a
>> 5+ day old moon. ...
>
> There is another problem with the Moon or with city lights that
> rears its head at such times, though; namely, dark-adaptation. Doing
> galaxy work with significant amounts of moonlight or city lights
> is a good time to worry about keeping your observing eye closed,
> or covered with a patch, when you are not using it, and perhaps to
> observe with a dark cloth wrapped around your head and the part
> of the telescope where the focuser lies.
>
> -- da Weasel
Received on Thu Apr 14 14:01:04 2005