May 24th 2024 at 7:30 AM: While Debbie and Sophie were still sleeping…I walked outside to see this amazing early morning rainbow in the west. This was my first time to see a rainbow at this time of the day, as they mostly occur in the afternoon and in the east. However, maybe more frequent than I’d think, as I’m just not looking at that time of the day. And we all know that a rainbow is always opposite the sun: When a rainbow is seen during the afternoon…the sun is in the west.
On the night of May 10th 2024, beginning at about 11:00 PM and lasting a couple or more hours. The northern lights enveloped the entire northeastern part of sky with a brilliant red color from my suburban backyard . The Aurora Borealis is rarely seen this far south at a latitude of +35 degrees 15 mins. north latitude.
However, this is not the first time I’d seen the Northern Lights from my backyard.
In February 1978, I walked outside at about 10:00 PM to see the most incredible sight. The “entire northern sky” was ablaze with reds and greens. And as described so often in astronomy and science publications, the colors were moving….similar to that of a large curtain waving in a breeze.
I thought everyone would be talking about this “absolutely incredible” aurora the next day, however, I didn’t hear of anyone else seeing it….locally or regionally.
Three nights in April 2000:
I saw the aurora again from my backyard at the same +35º 15′ N latitude. Again, very far south to see the aurora.
The following photos were made on the night of May 10th 2024, beginning at 11:30 and shortly after midnight. I was using an iPhone 14 with 3-second exposures, and being handheld.
Photos of aurora using an iPhone 14 (hand-held) on the night of October 10th 2024 as following:
The following photo of the aurora display with the Andromeda Galaxy (the tiny blur near the center of the photo) which is right of the constellation of Cassiopeia. Light pollution is severe in this area of the sky, which reduced the contrast of the aurora significantly.
After a couple unsuccessful observing sessions during the summer of 2024, I was anxious to try again in the early morning hours of 2025, with cold temperatures and more transparent skies.
March 26th 2024:
4:15 AM: I began with a magnification of 104x and field motion…then moving the galaxy out of the field, and then letting it drift back. Increasing the magnification to 291x, but the view was no better, and the galaxy appearing as only an intermittent blur and less than 50% of the time.
I attempted two very early morning observing sessions in March and April of 2024 from my suburban backyard, but again without success. A dark site is really needed to observe any low-surface-brightness galaxy, especially one as dim and faint as NGC 6118.
However, traveling to a dark-site has been over for many years. The disassembly of a heavy equatorial mount and handling a large solid-tube Newtonian, loading, driving, unloading, reassembly, and then having to do it all again, became just too much. I will just continue to do my best from the backyard.
I just couldn’t forget about this galaxy, and wanted to give it another try.
Saturday morning: May 11th 2024 @ 1:00 AM with a 5.0 NELM overhead, but about 4.0 in the area of the galaxy.
The following cellphone photo is from that night and beside my telescope. Note the constellation Scorpius toward the right lower corner. Now see the brighter pair of stars, almost in the center of the photo, above or north of Scorpius.
The most northern star, is known as “Yed Prior” at mag. 2.7. The second star toward the south or closest to Scorpius is “Yed Posterior” at mag. 3.2. Now move your telescope slightly to the NE of “Yed Prior” and use your star atlas to dead center, where NGC 6118 should be.
If you are a visual observer and observing from a suburban backyard, I wish you luck.
Telescope: 10-inch f/4.5 EQ Newtonian observing notes:
Description: A tiny and subtle brighter middle, which resembles that of a planetary nebula. And like so many planetary nebulae, when using direct vision, vanishes or winks out. The galaxy has a very faint and diffuse irregular halo, which is oriented NE-SW. After my many observing sessions of NGC 6118, it’s easy to understand why its named “The Blinking Galaxy.”
I was so sorry to hear about Al Nagler’s passing:
It was the April 2017 Southern Star Astronomy Convention sponsored by the Charlotte Amateur Astronomers Club, when a scheduled speaker for the convention cancelled at the last minute.
I’m not a member of the Charlotte Club, but had helped them over a few years to fill speaker positions at Southern Star.
A new speaker was needed…and really quick!
The Charlotte club officer in charge of Southern Star contacted me about finding a new speaker and asked if I could help in finding “the perfect” person to fill this now vacant position.
A solution, as I already had someone in mind:
I knew that Sue and Alan French were attending NEAF at that time. So, I called Sue via cell phone, and asked if she would talk to Al Nagler and see if he was interested in being a speaker at Southern Star.
Al was indeed interested and both he and his wife graciously accepted the invitation.
Al gave a fabulous presentation concerning “everything anyone would want to know” about eyepieces. I don’t think anyone would know more about the science of eyepieces than Al Nagler. The presentation, to say the least was excellent, and so much so, I even took notes.
Al Nagler and his wife…two great people!
I was able to talk with Al and his wife for extended periods during the event, and also enjoyed having lunch with them in the Wild Acres cafeteria.
Photo as following: Al signing my “1000+ The Amateur Astronomer’s Field Guide to Deep Sky Observing” by Tom Lorenzin at the April 2017 Southern Star Astronomy Convention in Little Switzerland, North Carolina:
My signed 1000+ by Al Nagler and the late Tom Lorenzin pictured below:
Early 50’s: Photo credit Tommy Greene
We visited the coffee shop earlier today (Thursday, September 25th 2025)
Debbie and I thought it would be good (a year or so ago) to document a little history concerning the building, and some information about W.J. Cash from wikipedia: So Read on...
Excerpts and photo as following from Wikipedia: The article is very long, so I tried to take out as much as possible, but leaving what I thought was the most important.
Wilbur Joseph “Jack” Cash (May 2, 1900 – July 1, 1941) was an American journalist known for writing The Mind of the South
Cash, known as “Jack” throughout his life, was born as “Joseph Wilbur Cash” – he later reversed the order of his given names, and normally used only the initials – and grew up in the mill village of Gaffney, South Carolina. He had three brothers and a sister, of whom he was the eldest. He was educated at the local public school until he was 12, when his family moved to Boiling Springs, North Carolina, 14 miles away across the state border – his mother’s home town – so that his father could become a partner with Cash’s maternal grandfather in a general store there.
…..In 1918 and 1919, at his father’s wish, Cash attended Wofford College, a Methodist school, but left because he objected to the school’s narrow provincialism. He then enrolled in Valparaiso University, a Lutheran college in Valparaiso, Indiana, dropping out around Christmas 1919. In 1920, again at his father’s urging, he entered the Baptist school Wake Forest College, despite it being what he considered to be a “preacher college.”[2]
In the summer, he worked at the hosiery mill at which his father was then the superintendent. Cash graduated in 1922 with an A.B., and then attended law school there for a year, before deciding not to pursue a legal career.[2] Cash later declared that he left law school because it “required too much mendacity.”
…..Cash taught English at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky, and at a high school in North Carolina, before experiencing a nervous collapse. Throughout his life, Cash suffered from manic depression or affective disorder, which manifested itself in breakdowns, periods of depression, fear of sexual impotency, and physical ailments such as not being able to swallow or choking when he spoke. He also suffered from a hyperthyroid condition, occasional alcoholism and excessive smoking. Cash usually referred to his condition as “neurasthenia“.[7]
From 1926 to 1928, Cash held several newspaper jobs: a year in Chicago writing for the now-defunct Chicago Evening Post; several months with The Charlotte News during which he wrote a wistful philosophical column titled “The Moving Row”; and a four-month stint during the fall of 1928 as the chief editor of a small semi-weekly newspaper, the Cleveland (County) Press, in Shelby, North Carolina.
…..Afterwards, Cash moved back into his parents’ house in Boiling Springs – where he lived with his extended family, including his two brothers and their pregnant wives. He contributed to H. L. Mencken‘s The American Mercury magazine, and received encouragement from Mencken. From 1929 to 1935, Cash wrote eight articles about various aspects of the South,[a] including one in October 1929 called “The Mind of the South”, which would become the basis for the later book.[b]
During the period of primary writing on The Mind of the South (1929 to 1937), Cash continued to live with his parents in Boiling Springs.[9] When his contributions to The American Mercury ended after Lawrence Spivak took over ownership of the magazine, Cash supported himself with freelance weekly book reviews to The Charlotte News from 1935 to 1939, for each of which he received a payment of $3, equivalent to about $60-$65 in 2023.
Cash’s seminal article, “The Mind of the South”, was published in The American Mercury in October
In 1932, however, he began to write seriously again, using the unheated back room of the Boiling Springs Post Office, where his aunt was the postmistress.
After Cash had some success at The Charlotte News, he finally had the personal and professional confidence he had previously lacked, and his work there helped him to develop his unique style of writing. He also met and fell in love with Mary Bagley Ross Northrup (later known as Mary Maury), a divorced woman who also wrote for the paper, and who helped him to complete the book through his periods of depression, and his continued focus on events in Europe. During this period, Cash would listen to the news on the radio about the Anschluss with Austria, the invasion of Poland, or the fall of France and would pace around the room, biting his nails, hands, and wrists, leaving marks. He would become so upset that he would leave the house and walk the streets at night.[14]
Finally, on July 27, 1940, the last pages of the manuscript were finished and sent to New York. Five months later, on Christmas Eve, Cash and Northrup were married by a justice of the peace in York, South Carolina.[11][2]
On February 10, 1941, The Mind of the South was published by Knopf. The book, an intuitive socio-historical exploration of Southern culture, received wide critical acclaim at the time and garnered for Cash praise from such sources as Time, The New York Times, The Saturday Review of Literature, and most Southern newspapers of note, although criticism came from the Agrarian group out of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Cash also received the thanks of Walter White, the director of the NAACP, for the book’s liberalism in regard to race and its exposure of the bigotry of the South.[15] Time said of The Mind of the South “Anything written about the South henceforth must start where [Cash] leaves off.”
Cash and his wife chose Mexico to spend their year on the Fellowship because it was cheap to live there, and they would have to watch every penny; they embarked on their trip to Mexico City on May 30 1941.[2] Cash had been invited by University of Texas president Homer Rainey to provide the main commencement address to the 1941 graduating class on June 2 in Austin, Texas.
While in Mexico City, Cash came under an apparent psychotic delusion. On June 30, he told his wife that he heard Nazi assassins whispering in the next room, plotting to kill him. The next day, when he was calmer, she went to get help. On her return with a correspondent they had met earlier, Cash was not in the room.
Hours later, he was located in another hotel, the Hotel Reforma, where he had hanged himself with his tie from the bathroom door.[17][d] An autopsy failed to find evidence of a brain tumor. Cash’s remains were cremated, and a funeral service was held in the First Baptist Church in Shelby. The ashes were later envaulted in Sunset Cemetery in Shelby.[2]
1971 class reunion: October 11th 2025: And a great time was had by all! It was a breezy (windy) and really cool Saturday afternoon.
The 2023 event follows 2025….just keeping scanning down.
I missed getting a “face-on” picture of Debbie. How was that possible? So, I thought I’d just share a photo of Debbie and Sophie from May 2025.
Photos of the 2023 Burns High School class reunion are as following: Much appreciation to Charlotte Sinclaire for taking the lead in organizing this fabulous event. Everything was perfect! A memorable class reunion for sure.
In the following photo…Five guys began 1st grade at Polkville in August 1959, and graduated together at Burns. We were the first class at the new school, and went all four years.
However, after the 5th grade, some of us parted ways for three years, some went to Casar and some went to Piedmont…but back together again at the new Burns High School in the fall of 1967.
Left to right: Charles Melton, Roger Ivester, Rob Pendleton, Bill Ledford and Don Bridges.
| Bortle Dark Sky Scale: The Bortle Dark Sky Scale was developed by John Bortle “based on nearly 50 years of observing experience,” to describe the amount of light pollution in a night sky. It was first published in a 2001 Sky & Telescope article. |
Depending on the device you are using, it may be necessary to slide the chart to the right to see in its entirety.
| Number Code | Map Color Code | Label | Sky Mag. | Naked Eye Limit Mag. | 320mm Limit Mag. | M33 visible? | M31 visible? | Central Galaxy visible? | Zodiacal light visible? | Light Pollution | Clouds | Ground Objects |
| 1 |  | excellent dark sky | 22.00–21.99 | ≥ 7.5 | > 17 | obvious | . | casts shadows | striking | airglow apparent | . | visible only as silhouettes |
| 2 |  | average dark sky | 21.99–21.89 | 7.0–7.49 | 16.5 | easy with direct vision | . | appears highly structured | bright, faint yellow color | airglow faint | dark everywhere | large near objects vague |
| 3 |  | rural sky | 21.89–21.69 | 6.5–6.99 | 16.0 | easy with averted vision | . | complex structure | obvious | LP on horizon | dark overhead | large distant objects vague |
| 4 |  | rural/suburban transition | 21.69–20.49 | 6.0–6.49 | 15.5 | difficult with averted vision | obvious | only large structures | halfway to zenith | low LP | lit in distance | distant large objects distinct |
| 5 |  | suburban | 20.49–19.50 | 5.5–5.99 | 14.5–15.0 | . | easy with direct vision | washed out | faint | encircling LP | brighter than sky | |
| 6 |  | bright suburban | 19.50–18.94 | 5.0–5.49 | 14.0–14.5 | . | easy with averted vision | visible only near zenith | . | LP to 35° | fairly bright | small close objects distinct |
| 7 |  | suburban/urban transition | 18.94–18.38 | 4.5–4.99 | 14.0 | . | difficult with averted vision | invisible | . | LP to zenith | brilliantly lit | . |
| 8 |  | city sky | < 18.38 | 4.0–4.49 | 13 | . | . | . | . | bright to 35° | . | headlines legible |
| 9 |  | inner city sky | . | ≤ 4.0 | . | . | . | . | bright at zenith | . | . | |
My view to the east (last night @ 9:15 PM, November 18, 2023 from my back deck) showing the light pollution at about 15º above the treetops.
I always try to observe deep-sky objects at least one hour or two from the meridian.
It is difficult to see the Pleiades “visually” at this low altitude. I was using an iPhone 14 “handheld” to make a photo for illustrative purposes.
The Pleiades was my first deep-sky object when I was 12 years old. I remember so well, walking out in my front yard in about mid-November and seeing this cluster rising above the treetops.
At that time, I had no clue as to what this group of stars were.
A year or so later I found out it was the Pleiades, M45 and my interest in amateur astronomy began, which continues to this day. Interesting to note: This was Leslie Peltier’s first deep-sky object also, as probably so many others.
The following photo:
Andromeda is difficult for me visually, and requires averted vision. At the meridian, it can be fairly easy, but averted vision still works best.
The following photo using my phone, presents the galaxy quite a bit brighter than naked-eye.
So, I estimate the Bortle Scale from my backyard to be ~6.5. I think we can all agree, the Bortle scale is not a definitive number, but using this criteria can describe an observing site pretty accurately. I’d say John Bortle developed an excellent, simple and objective measurement system for judging different observing sites, and for comparison with others.
I continue to ride, but “absolutely certain” I’ll not be able to ride another 100,000 miles. My rides in recent years are quite a bit shorter and much slower, but more fun.
Date: October 9th 2023:
I’ve went from an 80mm f/5 refractor to this 10-inch Newtonian in just a matter of days. So, I’m proud of the progress I’ve make, from never using a camera with a telescope, to “at least” an image of the moon. And all within a week!
I changed some settings on my camera, something I’d never done before. It had been set on ISO 100, for my everyday snapshots, and changed to ISO 400 this morning for this moon shot. I was amazed how much brighter the moon was when focusing through the camera using this 10-inch versus the 80mm refractor.
For sure a lot easier to focus with the brighter view due to the size of the telescope.
The field using this telescope is really narrow and small as this photo shows. Now I’ve got to figure out how to set the “exposure time” for some small and bright deep-sky objects.
I’m actually amazed that I could do this...and hopefully more and better to come. Debbie
Telescope: 80mm: 400mm Focal Length: f/5
Camera: Nikon D3300
Nikon T-Adaptor
Camera Setting: Manual
Vixen GP Equatorial Mount
The following photo was made after sunrise
Nikon T-Adaptor
I also made a photo as following using a 10-inch f/4.5 EQ telescope. Roger had using this telescope during an early morning 4:00 AM observing session of a galaxy. So, before bringing it back into the house, he suggested I try a moon photo with this telescope. This is my photo.
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