Hi Leinad,
Very good report, looks like your finding skills are coming along in leaps and bounds.
Just one thing of interest to note.
I see in your report of IC 2602 you say:
"Beatuiful 'bright' stars, slightly orange tinged"
But I think you ought to take a second look at this through less tired eyes or perhaps you have muddled up your impression/notes with another cluster you looked at.
IC 2606 (Theta Carinae Cluster or Southern Pleiades) is by-and-large a very young and quite "blue" cluster. It is also pretty close-by in the scheme of things. The nearest orange star to the centre of the cluster is fully 1.5 degrees westward -- it is magnitude 5.3 SAO 250979, a K0 (III) B-V +1.85 orange giant that will look golden yellow/orange in an 8", but is well out of the field of view of the cluster -- even with the 40mm ep.
In fact Theta Carinae (the star in the centre of IC 2602) is as blue as a star can possibly appear to the human eye with a spectral class of B0 (V) (a blue main sequence dwarf) and a B-V trace of -2.00. There are about 1/2 a dozen other bright cluster members with significant negative B-V figures that will make them look decidedly on the bluish side of white (or as I like to call it cold-white). Take another look and let us know what you think.
Mmmm ... NGC 3293 -- possibly my favorite open cluster.
As noted above, you certainly saw the astonishing Homunculus Nebula near the centre of the Eta Carinae complex (NGC 3372). Try it again on another night with higher magnification when the seeing allows. You can read all about this incredible and singular star here at Jim Kahler's site:
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/etacar.html
Quite possibly the most extreme star in our galaxy.
Best,
Les D
Contributing Editor
AS&T