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. It did remind me that planetary nebulas are pretty cool; I should start observing them more often again.
I did do a little experimenting with the ultrablock and broadband filters (just holding them up to the eyepiece while looking through). Once again, as far as I can tell, those filters that aim to reduce the effects of light pollution are pretty useless. I don’t know if that’s because Tacoma is so light polluted that they don’t work right, or what. The OIII filter remains quite useful, however, and I need to try an H-II filter sometime to see if that works out better.
Conditions here will, I’m afraid, remain difficult until the smog and haze that have been hanging around get blown away or we get some rain. It may be a while before better conditions come along.
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