Last night Margaret and myself decided to make the most of the ideal conditions here. No jet stream, new moon, great seeing 7-8/10, balmy temp. (14 deg.), little breeze and a glass or two of a nice Reisling.
Observing was done between 21:30 and 12:45 with dark semi rural skies. Unless stated otherwise we used the 200mm Newt. with the 13mm Naglar lens, and no filters.
Oh yes, the observing party not only consisted of myself and Margaret but also our two dogs one of which is a 60kg Bernese who is mostly black and loves to lay beside the scope tripod. Makes for interesting viewing! And our cat, also black.
First off the rank was M31 with the best view I've ever had of the Andromeda galaxy. It stretched way past the FOV with a very bright core. Seeing was so good that all of the fainter arms could easily be seen. Reaction from margaret, WOW! Its companion galaxies M32 Globular galaxy and M110 were also clearly visable although structure was not possible in M110.
Next was off to M33 The Pinwheel galaxy in Triangulum. This was easily found and larger than I had expected filling nearly 1/3 the FOV. Although very faint its structure was obvious especially with averted vision. Even the dust lanes could be made out.
M77 Cetus A in the constellation of Cetus was our next target and again no trouble locating in this dark part of the sky. Although quite small this face on galaxy exibited a fairly bright disk with a very bright bar like core. No arms or dust lanes could be made out.
During this hunting we enjoyed our wines while sitting and just watching the sky finding ourselves in the middle of the Taurid meteor shower. we were seeing about 6 meteors/hr with some fireballs. The highlight which was a virtical brilliant blue/white fireball with a tail that stretched about 25 deg. Lit up the entire northern horizon.
BIG WOW factor!!
To finish the evening we looked at some old friends, M42 Great, 47 Tuc Terrific, Tarantula Magnificent, and the Pleiades Beautiful.
Once margaret had gone inside I started to pack up but realised the time, Comet Holmes 17P was about to rise, I couldnt resist, (btw, I find this comet better in the 30X100 binos than the scope) waiting to watch this spectical and while killing the 20 min or so decided to try out the AOE binos on M1 The Crab Nebula. Easy, and a good size view. I just love these binos.
That was it then, off to bed. What a wonderful night. Very happy.
