I am not a big fan of huge parties, so spending New Year's Eve in the middle of nowhere observing was pretty good! A slightly shorter write up
over here, but - again - highlights:
* NOT Jupiter, because the seeing was mush.
* NGC1808, a long faint but obvious galaxy, with a bright centre.
* a group of five - maybe six - galaxies all visible within the same field of view (1 degree) in Fornax.
* identifying Procyon, Castor and Pollux, and confirming that Aldebaran is indeed that star in Taurus, thanks to the Argo (which later died a very sad battery death, just as James' had the night before).
* M67 (another open cluster that I do like; it looks like someone took a bite out of the side).
* 47Tuc, which looked INCREDIBLE and as fake as ever.
* the Tarantula Nebula, which I choose to think of as resembling a flower. * and, of course, M42, whose nebulosity just looked brilliant through the Dob. I had to get a bigger eyepiece to get a better view of it!