Astro log: Sept. 17th, 2009

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 found a globular cluster I couldn't find on the charts and spent most of the rest of my observing time trying to figure out what it was. This morning, I finally was able to determine that I had misidentified the stars I thought I was looking at, and identified the cluster as Messier 22. It didn't look very impressive, but I'm not sure if that's more to do with the transparency issues or the skyglow to the south.

After M22 dipped behind the garage, I looked at M31 and M32 again. I tried once more to find M110, but while I'm pretty sure I'm looking in the right area, I still have been unable to see it. So far from the weather reports, it doesn't look like there's any promising observing nights until next week, but there might be at least three good nights in a row.

 
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