[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

This is MUCH shorter than the version I have written in my own log - but for anyone interested here goes!

My original aim was to view as many planets as possible between sunset and sunrise (Venus yet to rise as I write this). The plan was to view (in order): Mercury, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Venus. (Pluto would be pushing beyond the absolute limits of my scope I feel even in perfect conditions, which tonight was not!).

Sadly Mercury and Saturn were never seen - obscurred by late afternoon clouds in the west. I'm think I'm going to try an all nighter again tomorrow night and see if I can make it all work out - clouds permitting.

Anyway Mars was an easy target, if not visible for long before hiding behind the clouds, Jupiter was an easy and high target for early evening viewing. I viewed Jupe a number of times during the evening, watching the dancing moons weave around, with a closely positioned star changing the usual view somewhat.

Neptune rose at my location at 19:55 hours, I didn't try to locate it until about 21:30 ... I have only ever seen Neptune through astrorons 16" dob, I didn't know what to expect through my own 10", how bright it would be, how much disk would I be able to resolve, etc. Long story short - found it eventually after much searching - I was in the correct little area of sky straight away but I had enormous trouble conclusively identifying the right object to my own satisfaction. Seeing supported no more than the 80x I was using so I was unable to resolve any disk as such, and virtually no colour. Starry Night informs me that Neptune was displayed at mag 7.85.

Uranus rose at 21:50 so by the time I had found and enjoyed Neptune in both 30mm wide field and 15mm plossl ep's (and checked Jupiter again, plus a quick tour around Crux, etc) Uranus was in a good viewing position, and I located it with much greater ease than I had Neptune, probably due to being visible at mag 5.8 - remember that I am very new to trying to use star charts, I do not have the luxury (yet) of a goto or pushto scope, and I do not even have manual setting circles so I can't translate chart data directly to my dob base to guide me - everything is done by star hopping. Again I enjoyed the view of this planet for several minutes before being ready to move on.

I then grabbed my mag 6.5 charts (courtesy of Toshimi Taki, and the link from IIS) and went looking around Scorpio and the nearby area, a rich part fo the sky indeed for any type of viewing, mostly looking for globular clusters as they are still visible in poor seeing.

Over the next hour or so I located and observed (in rough order) M4 (the nearest of all glob clusters) and the very nearby NGC 6144 which is a surprisingly faint glob (both objects right on Antares doorstep), then I spent some time observing NGC 6397 and NGC 6352 and NGC 6388 (all glob clusters) finally slipping along a little further to find M7 (Ptolomey's Cluster) which is a pleasant open cluster "below" Scorpios tail.

After about 3 hours outside (including some naked eye sky watching) I packed my gear and came inside to research these objects. Almost every object I viewed tonight (barring Mars and Jupiter actually) was a first for me personally ie locating and viewing through my own scope, and to be honest I had a great night!

(Venus due to rise in about 3 minutes .. but I think I'll get some sleep and prepare for a full night tomorrow night instead)

Steve