Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, Nikon 10x50 binoculars (new item), 32mm TeleVue Plössl eyepiece (new item), 9mm Planetary eyepiece. Previously viewed objects: Messier 42, Messier 45, Messier 31 Not much of a night out, but I did get to try out the TeleVue 32mm Plössl eyepiece I picked up a couple of months ago finally, along with the 10x50 binoculars I got for Christmas. Both were very nice, but while it was a reasonably clear night it was awfully humid.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 102mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope, 55mm, 32mm, 25mm, 12mm TeleVue, 9mm & 6mm Edge-On Planetary eyepieces, Paracorr, 12mm illuminated reticle eyepiece. New objects observed: NGC 6426, NGC 6118, NGC 7142, NGC 5976A, NGC 5981, NGC 2403, NGC 2655, NGC 2715, NGC 6356, NGC 6342, NGC 6217, Previously viewed objects: Venus, IC 4665, Messier 7, Saturn, Titan, NGC 5557, NGC 5866/“Messier 102”, NGC 5907, Messier 31, Messier 32, Messier 110, NGC 404, Messier 33, NGC 6633, Messier 51, NGC 5195, NGC 7000, NGC 7009, Messier 13, NGC 6207
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, new 9mm & 6mm Edge-On Planetary eyepieces, Paracorr New objects observed: Iapetus Previously viewed objects: Saturn, Titan, Tethys, Dione, Rhea It’s been a pretty brutal time for trying to get viewing time in for a while now. It was finally “clear” last week, so I took the Dobsonian out to try out the Edge-On Planetary 6 and 9mm eyepieces from Orion that I got a while back.
Equipment: 102mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope, 32mm, 25mm, 15mm, 12.4mm eyepieces, tabletop mount, AstroMaster 76’s mount. New objects observed: none Previously viewed objects: Messier 44, Messier 45, Messier 42, NGC 1981, Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Trapezium New equipment! A 102mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope from Orion with a tabletop mount, suitable for packing in one’s luggage and taking on a trip.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue eyepiece, Paracorr. New objects observed: NGC 6756, NGC 6802, NGC 7086, NGC 7128 Previously viewed objects: Messier 13, NGC 6755, Coathanger This was only the third night I was able to get out this year. It sucks, but I did get some new objects at least. Messier 13 is, of course, not a new object. My six year old son had expressed a desire to look at something in the telescope though, so I went and got it in view before I went to try and wake him up.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue eyepiece, Paracorr. New objects observed: Sadly, none. Previously viewed objects: Messier 13, NGC 6229, NGC 6207, NGC 5866 (aka “Messier 102(?)”) This has been a terrible year for observing. Last night was the second night that I’ve been able to get out and observe anything. It was only a so-so night on top of it, and I started getting kind of sore while I was out there.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue eyepiece, Paracorr. New objects observed: NGC 4435, NGC 4443, NGC 4419, NGC 4450, NGC 4350 Previously viewed objects: Messier 89, Messier 90, Messier 87, Messier 86, Messier 84, Mars, NGC 4478, NGC 4438, NGC 4458, NGC 4477, NGC 4459 This was the first night I got any telescope since last September, ugh. The weather the entire winter was not at all cooperative. I didn’t have high hopes for the evening, since the fence between my neighbors and I got replaced over the winter because it fell over, and it’s letting more light into my yard.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue eyepieces, OIII filter, Paracorr. New objects observed: NGC 7008, NGC 7129, NGC 7160, NGC 7788, NGC 7790, Frolov 1 Previously viewed objects: NGC 6826 (Blinking Planetary Nebula), NGC 6939 There were two reasonably clear nights in a row. That doesn’t happen real often. I spent some time looking for Herschel 400 galaxies, but sadly right now there don’t seem to be a whole lot of them out.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue, 6mm eyepieces, 2x Barlow, OIII filter, Paracorr. New objects observed: NGC 6755, NGC 6781, NGC 752, NGC 1245 Previously viewed objects: Messier 31, Messier 32, NGC 7009 I got a good night for observing for the first time in nearly two months. Ugh. I was mostly pursuing Herschel 400 objects this night, but did spend some time observing the Andromeda Galaxy for a while. It looked pretty good, especially for being in the city - not only was the nucleus nice and bright, but there were hints of the rest of the galaxy around it, even the barest hints of the dust lanes.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue eyepieces, Paracorr. New objects observed: NGC 6882, NGC 6885, NGC 7062, NGC 7296 Previously viewed objects: Coathanger (Cr 399), NGC 7082 The skies were looking pretty good this evening, so I ended up taking the telescope out. The moon’s getting bigger, and this will probably be the last night for a while that I’ll be able to go out observing for at least a couple of weeks.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 6mm, 12mm TeleVue, Paracorr, plus looking through some other people’s telescopes New objects observed: NGC 5907, NGC 4631, NGC 4656, NGC 4627, NGC 5273, NGC 5557, NGC 5529, NGC 7000, NGC 7217, T Lyrae Previously viewed objects: Messier 57, Messier 81, Messier 82, NGC 3077, NGC 7331, Messier 51, NGC 5195, Messier 7, Neptune, Messier 8, NGC 5866, NGC 7318, NGC 7320, NGC 6940, NGC 6910
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue eyepieces, Paracorr. New objects observed: NGC 6229, NGC 6633, NGC 6934, NGC 7006 Previously viewed objects: Messier 13, NGC 6207 An unexpectedly good night. It was clear, but the area around Mt. Rainier was looking quite hazy on the bottom, and the other mountains were hard to see through the haze. I went out to see how the sky looked around midnight, though, and it looked pretty good, so I set up and knocked a few objects off the Herschel 400 list along with observing M13 once again (which is always pretty striking).
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm eyepiece, Paracorr. New objects observed: none Previously viewed objects: Messier 81, Messier 82, Messier 3 Not a good night, it turned out. Mt. Rainier looked pretty good from my window, so I thought I might be able to pull off some quality observing, but it was not to be. I initially tried looking for some Herschel 400 objects, but wasn’t having any luck there. To get a feel for the overall quality of the night, I looked at Messier 81, 82, and 3, since they would be in pretty good positions and should be fairly easy to find.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue eypieces, Paracorr. New objects observed: NGC 3607, NGC 3608 Previously viewed objects: None. Not that great of a night. I did see two new Herschel 400 objects, NGC 3607 and 3608, but even getting those took a while. This night was, sadly, murkier than the Clear Sky Chart indicated it might be (the smog’s still hanging around, and while it wasn’t as bad as it was for the previous few days it was still pretty bad), and that’s all I ended up being able to see.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 6mm, 12mm TeleVue eyepieces, Paracorr. New objects observed: NGC 4216, NGC 4251, NGC 4278, NGC 4274, NGC 4283, NGC 4526, NGC 4414 Previously viewed objects: None. All new things this time. The weather’s been pretty nice here over these last few days. Now that I’ve observed all of the Messier objects, I decided to take a crack at the Herschel 400. Everything I was looking for this night was pretty difficult; there were a number of galaxies that I was looking for that I never was able to definitely find, but I was able to find many of the ones I did set out to find.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue eypieces. New objects observed: Messier 61, NGC 4261, NGC 4260, NGC 4270, NGC 4273, NGC 4281, NGC 4268, NGC 4324, Messier 98, Messier 100, NGC 4312, Messier 83 (Update: Geez, how did I manage to forget to actually list these when I first wrote this? I plead distraction by kids.) Previously viewed objects observed: Messier 44, Saturn Location: Near Mt. St. Helens I had been on the verge of having observed all of the Messier objects for a while, but conditions here haven’t been good for observing for months.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 32mm, 12mm TeleVue Nagler New objects observed: Messier 78, Messier 48, Messier 93 Previously viewed objects observed: Messier 81, Messier 82 This last winter ended up being remarkably brutal. There ended up not being a single night I was able to go out. There were a few nights were it looked like it might be clear, but it ended up that it wasn’t really because while there weren’t any clouds, it was very hazy.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue eyepieces, OIII filter. New objects observed: NGC 1027, IC 1805, NGC 6823, NGC 6834, NGC 6866, NGC 6905 Previously viewed objects: Coathanger (Cr 399), NGC 6910, Messier 57 A somewhat hazy night here, sadly. It ended up being one of those nights where you mostly look at open clusters because that’s mostly what you can see. I did at least observe some more of the Herschel 400 open clusters (and some were even challenging), and for the heck of it looked at M57, because I haven’t for a while.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm eyepiece New objects observed: NGC 7606, NGC 404, NGC 488, NGC 1023, NGC 891, NGC 7479, Palomar 13 Previously viewed objects: Messier 31, Messier 32, Messier 33, Messier 110 Location: Sunrise, up at Mt. Rainier. This was not the best night to have gone up to Sunrise, but it’s unclear if I’ll be able to make another trip up this year, so I went last night. To get a feel for how the night was going to go I found M33 and was not encouraged; it was rather faint, despite being at 45º altitude.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm Tele Vue eyepieces, OIII filter. Once again, no ParaCorr this evening. New objects observed: NGC 40, NGC 278, NGC 7686, NGC 7789, NGC 6940 Previously viewed objects: Messier 31, Messier 32, Messier 110, NGC 185, NGC 6939, NGC 6946, Messier 51, NGC 5195 New Location: Paradise, up on Mt. Rainier. My eight year old daughter has been wanting to come with me on one of my observing excursions sometime.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm Tele Vue eyepieces. No ParaCorr this evening. OIII filter. New objects observed: NGC 129, NGC 136, NGC 225, NGC 436, NGC 637, NGC 663, NGC 659, NGC 381, NGC 1501, NGC 1502 Previously viewed objects: NGC 457, NGC 869, NGC 884 Since I only have seven Messier objects left to observe, and none of them are in the sky right now, I’ve started working on the Herschel 400.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55m, 12mm Tele Vue eyepieces. Also looked at M13 & the Veil Nebula through someone else’s telescope. New objects observed: NGC 7335, Stephan’s Quintet (NGC 7317, NGC 7318 (a & b), NGC 7319, NGC 7320), Mayall II, Maffei 1 Previously viewed objects: NGC 7331, Messier 31, Messier 32, Messier 110, NGC 3077, Messier 81, Messier 82, Messier 13, NGC 6960, Messier 45, Messier 33 Location: Sunrise Point, Mt.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm Tele Vue eyepieces. New objects observed: Basel 1, NGC 6704, NGC 6712, IC 4665, Collinder 350 Previously viewed objects observed: Messier 11 (Wild Duck Cluster), NGC 7331, Messier 31, Messier 32 The main task this night was looking around for that interesting asterism I remembered seeing a long time ago. I think it’s in the neighborhood of the Wild Duck Cluster, and if so I think I have indeed found it again.
Equipment: 6” Orion Skyview EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 6mm, 4mm eyepieces, OIII filter. New object observed: NGC 6910 Previously viewed objects observed: Messier 29, Epsilon Lyrae, NGC 7331 New location: Rockaway Beach, OR. Rockaway Beach is fairly dark, but unfortunately it was hazier and damper than I realized, which made it both more difficult to observe than I hoped it would be and brought a fairly early end to the night. I did try searching around for an observing spot that wasn’t so near the ocean that might be above some of this haze, but nothing has panned out yet.
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian, 55mm, 12mm TeleVue Nagler, 32mm, 6mm eyepieces, OIII filter. New objects observed: Messier 107, Messier 23, Messier 24, Messier 109, Messier 108, Messier 55, NGC 2976, Messier 25, Messier 15, Messier 75, NGC 6946, NGC 6939 Previously viewed objects observed: Messier 8, NGC 6530, Messier 97, Messier 51, NGC 5195, Messier 13, Messier 92, Messier 81, Messier 82, NGC 3077, NGC 6960 (Western Veil Nebula), NGC 6995 (Eastern Veil Nebula), NGC 6974, Messier 31, Messier 32, Messier 110
Equipment: 16” Dobsonian telescope, 55mm and 12mm Tele Vue Nagler eyepieces. “New” objects observed: Messier 10, Messier 12 Previously viewed objects observed: Messier 56 “New” is in quotes there because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen M10 and M12, but never bothered to make note of it. In any case, I made sure to look at them tonight, so two more off the Messier list for sure. This was a surprisingly difficult night.
I've fairly diligently kept up keeping records of what I've been observing, either by tweeting about it or noting it in the notes on my iPhone or in SkySafari (also on my iPhone). It's been a pretty brutal last year and a half or so, weatherwise, so I had surprisingly few chances to even get out and observe anything. Plus, once you've fallen behind a bit it's hard to pick yourself up and get caught up.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 12.4mm eyepieces. OIII filter. New objects observed: Messier 1, Messier 35, Messier 37, Messier 38, NGC 1981, Trapezium Previous objects observed: Messier 42, Messier 36 Notes: Productive, although freezing and dewy sort of night. Started off going M42, but Orion was at a place in the sky that it was really hard to aim my telescope at and still be able to look into it without leaning way way over it while standing on a stool, so I moved on until it came around to a better spot.
Catching up on Astro Logs again... Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 9mm, 4mm, plus 6mm + 2x Barlow eyepieces. Previous objects observed: Jupiter Notes: Took a look at Jupiter since it was super close. Not much else to say.
Catching up on Astro Logs again... Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ. Forgot to note eyepieces. New objects observed: Messier 69, Messier 70, Messier 14, Messier 39, NGC 7082 Previous objects observed: Messier 31, Messier 32 Notes: Knocked off a few more Messier objects.
Catching up on Astro Logs again... Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 9mm eyepieces, OIII filter. New objects observed: Messier 72, Messier 30, Palomar 12?, NGC 188, NGC 7293 Previous objects observed: M31, M32, M110, M33 New location! Keechelus Lake Notes: Catching up on these again, sigh. This time, I investigated a dark site at Keechelus Lake up by Snoqualmie Pass. It has the advantage of being a much shorter drive than the other sites I've investigated, but on the downside the sky isn't as dark as it is at Sunrise or Mt.
Catching up on Astro Logs again... Equipment: Celestron AstroMaster 76 EQ, Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 9mm, 6mm, 4mm eyepieces. New objects observed: Messier 34 Previous objects observed: Jupiter, Messier 31, Messier 32, Messier 77 Notes: Went out to see if it's easier to look at Jupiter with my f/9 3" telescope or not. It was, but not so much that I'll likely do so a lot. Jupiter was less washed out looking though.
Catching up on Astro Logs again... Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 25mm, 15mm eyepieces. New objects observed: Messier 77, Messier 74, NGC 253 (Sculptor Galaxy) Previous objects observed: Messier 31, Messier 32, Messier 110, Messier 33 New location! At Johnston Ridge Observatory, near Mt. St. Helens. Actually, when I got to Johnston Ridge, it was extremely windy. So windy I was having to brace myself against the high winds and was not confident that the wind wouldn't blow my telescope over.
Catching up on Astro Logs again... Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 9mm, 6mm, 4mm, and 6mm + 2x Barlow eyepieces. Previous objects observed: Messier 31, Messier 32, Uranus Notes: Not much to say. Got M31 and M32, and observed Uranus again this year. I think it was after this night I decided I had to clean my eyepieces off finally.
Catching up on Astro Logs again... Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ. New objects observed: Messier 36 Notes: Knocked off Messier 36, but forgot to note anything else I did that night or what eyepieces I used. As I recall, it was pretty pathetic all around.
Catching up on Astro Logs again... Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 9mm, 6mm eyepieces, OIII filter. New objects observed: Messier 101, NGC 6992 + NGC 6995 + NGC 6960 (East & West Veil Nebula), Stock 2, Messier 76 Previous objects observed: Messier 31, Messier 32, Messier 110, Messier 33, NGC 884 & NGC 869 (Double Cluster) New location! A spot in the middle of nowhere near Mt. St.
One in a series of entries catching up on a serious backlog of Astro Logs. Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 9mm, 6mm eyepieces. OIII filter. New objects observed: M71 (supposedly), M27 (supposedly), NGC 7027 Previous objects observed: NGC 6543 (if I remember right, anyway), M2, M31, M32 Notes: Catching up on a massive backlog of Astro Logs I let develop. Unfortunately, all I have are the notes I left on Twitter about what I saw.
One in a series of entries catching up on a serious backlog of Astro Logs. Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 9mm, 6mm eyepieces. OIII filter. New objects observed: NGC 6207 Previous objects observed: Double Cluster (NGC 884 & NGC 869), M31, M32, M110, M33, M13, M92 Notes: Catching up on a massive backlog of Astro Logs I let develop. Unfortunately, all I have are the notes I left on Twitter about what I saw.
One in a series of entries catching up on a serious backlog of Astro Logs. Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, OIII filter. New objects observed: NGC 5866 (aka M102), NGC 7331, M73 Previous objects observed: NGC 7009, M31, M32 Notes: Catching up on a massive backlog of Astro Logs I let develop. Unfortunately, all I have are the notes I left on Twitter about what I saw. This night, though, I took better notes.
One in a series of entries catching up on a serious backlog of Astro Logs. Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 9mm, 6mm eyepieces. OIII filter. New objects observed: M2 (supposedly) Previous objects observed: M57, M8, M20, M21, M17, M16, M31, M32, NGC 7662, NGC 6543 Notes: Catching up on a massive backlog of Astro Logs I let develop. Unfortunately, all I have are the notes I left on Twitter about what I saw.
One in a series of entries catching up on a serious backlog of Astro Logs. Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ New objects observed: Mu Cephei Previous objects observed: M31, M32 Notes: Catching up on a massive backlog of Astro Logs I let develop. Unfortunately, all I have are the notes I left on Twitter about what I saw.
One in a series of entries catching up on a serious backlog of Astro Logs. Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ New objects observed: M54 Notes: Catching up on a massive backlog of Astro Logs I let develop. Unfortunately, all I have are the notes I left on Twitter about what I saw.
One in a series of entries catching up on a serious backlog of Astro Logs. Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ New objects observed: M6, M52 Previous objects observed: M57, M56, M31, M32 Notes: Catching up on a massive backlog of Astro Logs I let develop. Unfortunately, all I have are the notes I left on Twitter about what I saw. Weirdly, I notice looking back that I had never put down M56 as something I'd seen, but I'm certain I've looked at it before.
One in a series of entries catching up on a serious backlog of Astro Logs. Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ New objects observed: M80, M4, M9, M62 Notes: Catching up on a massive backlog of Astro Logs I let develop. Unfortunately, all I have are the notes I left on Twitter about what I saw.
One in a series of entries catching up on a serious backlog of Astro Logs. Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ New objects observed: M63, M92, M29 Previous objects observed: M81, M82, M94, M5, M13 Notes: Catching up on a massive backlog of Astro Logs I let develop. Unfortunately, all I have are the notes I left on Twitter about what I saw.
Equipment: May 5th, Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 6mm, 4mm eyepieces. May 6th: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 9mm, 6mm eyepieces, OIII filter. New objects observed (all May 7th): M97, NGC 3077, M89, M90 (maybe) Previous objects observed: May 6th: Venus. May 7th: M81, M82, M87 Notes: May 6th: Went out in the evening and looked at Venus some, but unfortunately observation was hindered by the branches on a tree it started going behind while I was looking at it.
Equipment: Celestron AstroMaster 76 EQ, Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, 32mm, 15mm, 10mm, 9mm eyepieces. New objects observed: Mercury, M60, M86, M84, M58, M104, M5 Previous objects observed: M87 Notes: An excellent night with good transparency and seeing, which has been quite the rarity around these parts for the last six months or so. To start off the night, at late evening I walked down to the corner with the Astromaster (easier to carry) to try and get Mercury.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 15, 9, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces. New objects observed: NGC 2264, NGC 2244, M106 Notes: I put off logging this night, and thought I had made notes of the exact day I had gone out, but it seems that I didn't or lost them and I don't remember exactly which day I went out. It was in any case around these days.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 15, 9, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces. New objects observed: M46, M47, M50 Notes: Not much to say here (which is part of the reason I'm only writing this up now). There was an unexpected gap in the clouds the night of the 8th, so I decided to run out back briefly and try to knock out some of the Messier objects visible in the vague neighborhood of Sirius.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 25, 15, 10, and 4 mm eyepieces. New objects observed: M51, M64, M87, M49 Previous objects observed: M81, M82, M53, Saturn, Titan Notes: Pretty good night. Very productive, given the four new galaxies, although the north still showed a lot of washing out from the lights of downtown Tacoma and the Port, which is usually a sign of some transparency issues. I also set up the viewing shelter, though, and wore an eyepatch for a while before hand, so that may have helped.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 25, 10, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces, and the 2x Barlow with the 6mm. New objects observed: M3, M53 Previous objects observed: M81, M82, Mars, Saturn, M94 Notes: Probably the last good night for a while. Weather's supposed to turn cloudy again, and the moon's rising later and waxing anyway. M81 & M82 weren't particularly bright, but they were visible. Found M94 again without too much trouble, but while I spent a good fair while trying to chase down other galaxies, I didn't have any luck.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 25, 15, and 4 mm eyepieces. New object observed: M94, M44, M67, M41, Saturn, Titan, Tethys, Phoebe Rhea Previous objects observed: M81, M82, Mars Possibly glimpsed (but likely not): M51, M65 Notes: It's been a brutal couple of months. The night of the 18th was the first clear night in about a month or so, and the first good night since December.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 15, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces.
New object observed: Mars
Previous objects observed: M42, M81, M82
Possibly glimpsed: NGC 3077 or NGC 2976
Notes:
It was still a cold night, but not quite as brutal as the last night out. It was a fairly short session as well, since the sky clouded up, but after using the eyepatch before I went out I was able to see both M81 and M82 again (also, I looked in the right place for M82 this time -- d'oh!). I may have also seen one of the nearby NGC galaxies, either NGC 3077 or NGC 2976, but I ended up not being able to find it again so I'm not claiming it as seen at this point.
Other than that, I looked at the always lovely Orion Nebula, and just as the clouds were starting to come in I moved the telescope and looked at Mars briefly. Unfortunately between the transparency issues that night, the clouds that were showing up, and poor seeing, I couldn't get much out of it.
Using the hair dryer for the purposes of defogging worked pretty well though this night, though. That was nice.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 15, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces and the ultrablock & OIII filters.
New object observed: NGC 2392 (Eskimo Nebula)
Previous objects observed: M42, M81, M45
Notes:
It was a brutally cold night, at about 12°F, but I was able to stay out for about an hour or so until my feet were too cold to go on. It turns out that at that temperature, extension cords (for hair dryers) are extremely stiff, and my stool that I sit on was frozen stiff. Couldn't turn it or make it go up and down.
At the beginning of my observing session, I was able to find M81, but not M82. I think, in the future, when I try to find them I'm going to need to make sure that I put my eyepatch on ahead of time to give myself a fighting chance of seeing them better. I would have gone back to it later, but didn't find the time before I was freezing too much.
The big find of the night, and an appropriate one given the weather conditions, was seeing the Eskimo Nebula. While the OIII filter didn't help with it at all (not sure because of conditions or what), the ultrablock did some. They weren't really very necessary, though; just looking at it with the naked eye, though, was enough, and I was even able to discern some detail from it, in that I could see the center being brighter than the dimmer outside. It didn't look like the pictures, of course, but I could see how it looks like that from what I saw. Not too bad.
The Pleiades and Orion Nebula were, as usual, stunning. Mars was not quite far enough over the house to look at last night; by the time it was high enough that I could see it standing up but still too low to get with the telescope, I was having to defog my eyepieces with the hair dryer (which worked nicely) and the oddly frozen extension cord, and I couldn't feel my toes anymore. At that point, I elected to go back in.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ and Celestron Astromaster 76 EQ, using the 32, 25, 15, and 9 mm eyepieces and the ultrablock filter.
New objects observed: dew
Previously observed objects: M31, M32, M42
Notes:
I had had great hopes for this night - the sky was going to be clear for a long time for the first time in ages, with halfway decent transparency to boot. I went and set up my shelter and scope early in the night, but found that there wasn't a whole lot out that I could look at early on, so I went back inside, leaving my stuff out for later.
When I came back out, I was a bit surprised to find that massive amounts of dew had settled on everything. Still, it wasn't the end of the world. I started looking around, but found that I was having a really hard time finding anything in my finder scope. Then I noticed that I was having a tough time seeing anything at all. Finally I shined my red flashlight on my eyepiece, and saw that it was fogged up. Oh no!
I tried swapping other eyepieces in, but that didn't help. The primary mirror was fine, at least, but I still couldn't see anything. Eventually I noticed that the secondary mirror was fogged up, so I packed everything up and took it back into the garage. I pointed the 6" upside down to dry out and left the lens case open so that could fully dry out as well. I took the 3" out for a spin for a while and was able to see M31 (but not M32) and M42, but not with the same detail as with the 6" of course. I am not, however, sure how much of the difference was from the size of the mirrors and how much was from any dewing on the 3".
After a while, I brought the 6" back out and was able to observe M31, M32, and M42 briefly, but it dewed up again within a few minutes and I gave up. I have begun researching anti-dewing solutions and will try them out next time the weather permits observation.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 15, and 10 mm eyepieces and the broadband, ultrablock, and OIII filters. New objects observed: M42, Betelgeuse Previous objects observed: M81, M82, M31, M32 Notes: The Moon was not out, and the clouds parted, for the first time in weeks, so I went out for a brief unplanned session with the telescope. Unfortunately transparency wasn't real great and skyglow was fairly bad, so it wasn't the best night.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 15, and 6 mm eyepieces. New objects observed: M81, M82, M33, M110 Previous objects observed: M31, M32, M57, M13 New Location: Sunrise Point, Mt. Rainier National Park Notes: This was a pretty big day, observing-wise, but very short. The weather and moon had been very uncooperative for the last couple of weeks, so I hadn't been able to do any observing at all.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 9, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces, and the 2x Barlow.
Previous objects observed: Neptune, Jupiter
Notes:
Didn't do much last night, but after I was able to resolve Uranus as a disk the other night I thought I'd give Neptune a shot again. I got up to 250x magnification with the 6mm and the 2x Barlow, and I'm pretty sure I saw a tiny disk. I spent some time comparing Neptune at that magnification with some nearby stars, and they were definitely more point-like, so I don't think it was a weird optics thing. So, tentatively I think I was able to resolve a disk from Neptune, albeit a very tiny one.
After I was done with Neptune I looked at Jupiter for a bit. It was its usual banded self, all four Galilean moons visible. Didn't spend much time on it.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 9, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces and the OIII and broadband filters. New object observed: NGC 6934 Previous objects observed: Vega, M57, Albeirio, M13, M31, M32 Notes: Despite the Clear Sky Chart saying that last night was going to be super transparent, sadly the Tacoma smog was pretty bad last night, dashing hopes of super good observing. I could see long beams from the headlights on the C17s flying in and out of McChord all night, and the skyglow was pretty bad.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 15, 10, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces and the ultrablock filter. New object observed: Uranus Previously observed objects: Epsilon Lyrae, M57, M31, M32, Pleiades Notes: Sadly, it looks like tonight (the 22nd) will be the last really good observing night at least for the next several days. Last night was pretty darn good, but tonight looks like it'll be absolutely amazing. Mostly last night I just identified objects to show my daughter when I take her out tonight rather than looking for anything new.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 25, 15, 9, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces and the broadband, ultrablock, and OIII filters. New objects observed: M17 (Omega Nebula), M16 (Eagle Nebula), M18, M11 (Wild Duck Cluster), M26 Previously observed objects: M31, M32 Notes: Not a long night. Conditions were actually better than they've been the last few nights I've been able to observe, but I was too tired to stay out very long; also, Monday night (and quite likely Tuesday night) are supposed to be even better.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 25, 15, 10, 6, and 4 mm eyepieces and the broadband, ultrablock, and OIII filters.
New objects observed: Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009), M103, Double Cluster (NGC 884 and NGC 869), Stock 2, Blinking Planetary Nebula (NGC 6826)
Previously observed objects: M31, M32, Owl Cluster (NGC 457)
Notes:
Better observing this night than the previous couple of nights observing, but there seemed to be some seeing issues. The Saturn Nebula, sadly, did not show enough resolution to show the weird lobes on the side, but it was kind of cool nonetheless. After I found the Saturn Nebula I tried to find M72 and M73, but they were sadly right below the top of the wall of my viewing shelter in that direction, and I didn't feel like moving the curtain. I'll have to get those a different night.
After I was done with the Saturn Nebula and trying to find M72 and M73, I turned my attention to Cassiopeia. After some fumbling around I figured out which bright stars were which, and observed the Owl Cluster again. I then observed M103 for a bit, and while trying to move my scope to observe a group of clusters further down from M103 (I was looking for NGC 659, 663 and 654), I managed to get lost and ended up finding the Double Cluster by accident. Fortunately it's a lovely sight and well worth finding. I was also able to observe the somewhat obscure open cluster Stock 2, which was pretty big but nothing to really write home about.
At this point in the night clouds were beginning to come in from the north, so I swung south to M31 and M32 again in hopes of finding M110 again. M31 and M32 were fine, but once again I was unable to see M110. I half heartedly tried for M33 while I was in the neighborhood, but not surprisingly had no luck there.
To wrap the night up, I swung my telescope towards Cygnus and quickly spotted the Blinking Planetary Nebula. I wasn't actually able to get it to blink, but I observed it for a little while before the clouds got too menacingly close.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 15, and 10 mm eyepieces and the broadband and ultrablock filters. New objects observed: M28, Lagoon Nebula (M8) & NGC 6530, M20 (kinda), M21, M54. Notes: Another night of below average conditions. The only reason I went out for a little while in the evening was to try out the viewing shelter I'd build since my mom was nice enough to come and help by making the curtains for it (more on that later), and I decided to do some more observing around Sagittarius.
Equipment: Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ, using the 32, 25, and 10 mm eyepieces and the broadband and ultrablock filters. New objects observered: M22 Previously observed objects: M31, M32 Notes: The night of the 17th was partly cloudy and had poor transparency, so I didn't go out for very long. I had originally intended to look for M81 and M82 briefly, but clouds were obscuring that part of the sky. I turned by scope towards Sagittarius, but misidentified what part of the constellation I was looking at.
I've decided to keep a running log of what I've been observing here. This initial entry is, sadly, from memory over the last couple of months, so no dates are provided. It's just a list from what I've been able to see from my backyard in Tacoma, WA. Hopefully once the shelter I'm working on (more on that later) gets done, I'll be able to see more things. Equipment: Telescopes: Celestron AstroMaster 76 EQ, Orion Skyview 6 Deluxe EQ; Filters: Polarizing, set of color filters, Broadband, H-Beta, OIII; Eyepieces: 32mm, 25mm, 20mm correcting, 15mm, 10mm, 2 9mm, 6mm, 4mm