Hi All,
Thanks for your comments -- much appreciated.
Rob, you've nothing to fear from me and any "foray" into astrology let me assure you. I have a lot of fun with people heavily into it when they come to Sydney Observatory.
By the way, object 1,000 (in 1996 or 1997 I think) was in ... Pictor -- so that kinda mucks up that little set. As you all know, Pictor (like Microscopium) is one of the sky's little deserts.
One thing I forgot to add Ron is that on the first night at about 8pm, I had another go at trying to see the PNn (central star) in the Ring Nebula (M57). The seeing was goodish without being brilliant. Used magnifications up to x464 and spent up to 10 mins looking -- no dice.
Saw IC 1296 (the little nearby barred spiral) again at x247 & x317, but no central star in the Ring.
David, all the obs were done with an 18" -- the Argus Panoptes. See my signature block.
If I had to pick a "most interesting thing" seen on the Thursday night, I'd go for NGC 7309 in Aquarius. Not so much for what is visible in the ep, but it seems to me to be a peculiar looking galaxy. On the DSS (see the link with the note) it nearly looks like a 3-armed spiral. I don't think three-armed spirals are "prohibited", but they are rare if not very rare. The brightness and filamentary nature of the arms is also strange if not intriguing. I'd like to see Hubble image it one day -- especially with all the new hardware they installed a couple of months ago. When they call for suggestions next time for the Hubble Heritage, I'll nominate it.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Best,
Les D