Tracey's Observing Report for Monday 2/16/09

Well the skies were perfect! The only reason I am done so soon is because my eyepieces all have frost on them and the tel-rad is completely frozen over. It's pretty chilly, but other than that it's just perfect (except for that damn light down at the corner). I'm just going to give a list of what I saw unless there was something special to note about it.

S Cephei - found it in about 10 seconds, which surprised the heck out of me. Looked beautiful of course, not as red as I have seen it before, but still good.
M81/82 galaxies in Ursa Major
M97 the owl nebula - I really must invest in an OIII filter.
NGC 7789 Caroline Herschel's cluster
WZ Cass
Eta Cass - one of my favorite doubles
NGC 457 - he's doing a headstand
Iota Cass - only the first split
M31/32/110 Andromeda
M34 - pretty open appears to be full of doubles
Eta Persei - another favorite double
M35 open cluster in Gemini
NGC 2266 another open in Gemini
NGC 2392 the Eskimo/Clown Face - put high power on this and was actually impressed
NGC 2269 the Cone Nebula
NGC 2237 the Rosette Nebula
M37 - my favorite open in Auriga
M36 - open cluster in Auriga
M38 - open cluster in Auriga
M45 - all the stars had neblosity - it think it was frost on the eyepiece ;-)
M1 - the crab nebula
NGC 2169 the XY chromosome as Tom calls it - my 6" was too small to make it look like that, but this new scope sure does!
M78 - two headlights in the fog
M42/43 - Orion nebula
M41 - open cluster in Canis Major
M46/NGC 2438 - the new scope is big enough to see the planetary in this open cluster!!
M47 - open cluster next to M46
M44 the beehive cluster
M67 - open cluster in Cancer...I think Tom said one of the oldest??
NGC 2903 - one of the brightest galaxies in Leo Major
Gamma Leonis - almost split it tonight, at least I could tell it was two stars, it kinda came and went - maybe an aperature stop would help this one.
Saturn with 4 visible moons
Cor Caroli
NGC 4565 took about 2 minutes to find but worth it!
I saw 2 quick meteors and one that was bright enough to leave a green tail for 3-4 seconds over an area about 6-7 degrees. All meteors were heading from the zenith westward.

I put the scope away around 10:30 due to frost. I need to make a dew shield for the Tel-rad on this scope. I forgot just how necessary this is. I also am going to have to move the Tel-rad on the scope. I need to move it closer to the focuser and back a little bit. It sits too high and too far forward for me to use without leaning on the scope. Next time it's nice I think I am going to try to collimate it too and then I think I will be very happy. Very glad that I purchased this scope, I can tell I am going to have hours of fun this summer!