[GUS.K (Ivan)]

Set up the 18 inch scope around 10.30 last night and had a look at the usual showpiece objects until the moon set, then spent a half hour on the Vela SNR trying out different magnifications and filters (OIII and UHC), the best view being with the OIII and 21mm Ethos. Even though the seeing wasn't the best this evening, it was relatively easy to trace out a sort of nebulous loop (and to make out the wispy filaments) which covered about 5 or so degrees.
Next up were two quasars, one in Crater and the other in Virgo. QSO B1104-181 in Crater is a blazar with approx magnitude of 15.9 to 16.2, and was a struggle to spot, being at the magnitude limit of my scope and the seeing didn't help either. Finding the location took about 10 minutes but spotting the quasar spanned another 20 minutes (to confirm the sighting) and I was able to spot it with direct vision about 20% of the time and with averted vision about another 20%, the rest of the time the seeing was too unsteady. So this quasar has a redshift Z=2.32 with a light travel time of 10.93 billion years.
I attempted to spot QSO 1224-1116 in Virgo (about 3 degrees west of M104) which is at about 10.8 billion light years, but didn't have any luck even though it is brighter than the Crater QSO at 15.1 mag. While there had a look at M104, always a beautiful sight in any scope. Will try for the QSO again tonight with some better charts
Thanks for reading.