[goober (Doug)]

Location: Melbourne
Time: 10pm-11:45pm

Pretty dull report, actually! Spent a bit of time star hopping around Orion with a copy of volume I of the MSA at the scope. I usually only use Sky Atlas 2000, but thought I'd try a more detailed atlas out. Of course, with only a 1x finder, it gets a bit tricky star hopping through the scope itself, as the image is reversed to the atlas. It seemed to work okay, once I had the orientation right at the eyepiece.

Once I'd had a play, and got comfortable with the overlays, I went hunting for some targets I'd noted down.

NGC 2017 - a rather dull open cluster or asterism in Lepus. Not far from Alpha Lepi. Four bright stars, and two or three very faint stars, in a the form of two triangles. Easy to find, and quite cute, but don't need to find this one again.

h3752 - double star right near to M79. I'd seen this before, when hunting M79, but didn't realize this is the same star. Quite tight for the 4" - needed 154x to split it cleanly. Had a look at M79 again while nearby - a few stars resolved on the cluster - core looked rather triangular.

IC418 - planetary nebula in Lepus. Easy to star hop to from Lambda Lepi via the MSA. Obvious, but stellar at 24x. 108x appeared to be a star surrounded by a shell of nebula. 154x it went into blinking planetary mode. Couldn't see any detail in the object, but could see some blue colour.

Saturn - just clearing the neighbours house as I was packing up. Viewed at 108x, and very nice. Bit of wobble, but steadied often and the views were very crisp. Obvious band around the disk, couldn't see Cassini, as the rings had closed up a lot since I last observed this with my old dob. Very pleased with the refractor view though.