September 4, 2007 Observing Report

I had 1 good, 1 great and 1 awesome session last night. Transparency was very good here. The Andromeda galaxy was visible with the naked eye.

The first session was around 8PM. I spent a few minutes looking at Jupiter. It was really nice save for the wispy clouds that were cruising through now and then. I did see several more clouds bands then usual, using the BO/TMB 4mm in my 80ED. At 150x the view was holding pretty steady. At this time, I had to go back in the house to put the littlest one down to sleep, which requires a half hour of listening to jazz on PBS, Eric in the Evening for you in the New England area.

Around 10:00PM, I went back out for a half hour session w/ The Ring and surrounding area. The views were great and I was able to split a few of double over there. M57 was just wonderful, even at 150x. I know I was pushing the limits of an 80mm scope, but the image was still pretty bright. From my experience the past few night, I know that the seeing conditions played a major role in this. Aperture is king, but a good clear night can make a world of difference.

At about 10:30PM I had to go back inside to workout and unplug my daughter from her feeding tube. The 3rd session started at 12:30AM and lasted till a bit after 1:30AM and was the bet of the night. The skies were much darker than the earlier sessions.

The list of items I saw were:
M45
Collinder 399 (Coathanger or Brochhi's Cluster) First time
M27
M15 First Time
M2 First Time
NGC884, NGC869 (Perseus Double Cluster)
NGC7789 First Time
Mars
M31

All items seen were great. It truly love finding the globulars with a small aperture scope. Mars looked wonderful at 150x and I can only imagine how it will look in December.