M 63

 05/11/2026 -- No moon (until after 03:00) and few (if any) clouds... great opportunity for wide band imaging.  Noted M63 is in an perfect location (fingers crossed) for collection this evening.


Seeing forecast for 05/11-12/2026 from meteoblue (top) and cleardarkskies (bottom) suggesting good views for this evening / morning.
Started with an initial polar drift alignment with PHD2 running on the Odroid C4.  First iteration: 10.19'. Turn azimuth adjustment knob left.  Over-corrected (-6').  Next iteration, brought this down to <1'. 

Set up the scheduler for M 63 and the sequence for 0C camera, 20x80s exposure, gain of 285 and offset of 24 (as usual).  The Indi Allsky backyard camera showed a pseudo sky quality metric of ~4960 t 22:25 (great sky quality).  The Weewx outdoor weather station showed:

"time": "2026-05-11T22:25:00-0400",
"generator": "weewx 5.3.1"
"temperature": {"value": 50.95862068965519, "units": "°F"},
"dewpoint": {"value": 44.67915782750027, "units": "°F"},
"humidity": {"value": 79.0, "units": "%"},
"heat index": {"value": 49.4674827586207, "units": "°F"},
"wind speed": {"value": 0.0, "units": "mph"},
"wind gust": {"value": 0.0, "units": "mph"},
"wind chill": {"value": 50.95862068965519, "units": "°F"}



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