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.
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, 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.