Started observing at 19:30 with a look at the Moon in Twilight and Noticed a largish crater with a dark line heading towards the terminator, after checking with my Moon atlas, it turned to be the crater Patavius, and the line is called Rimae Patavius which is 80kms long, quite stunning in high mag.
Quick look at Saturn then in for tea and the news.
19:00 and observed the usual pretty pictures, Eta Carinae
NgcS 5128,5139, 4594,M83,2997, Saturn, Blue planatery(Ngc3918) this last object is great under high mag with an O111 filter.
By this time I was fully dark adapted and proceeded on my Supernova search, the seeing was only about 7.5-10 Trans 7-10, and the temp 15degsC so I was not able to use as much magnifacation as I would have liked but was still able to get through observing 45 galaxies in Antlia, Sextans and other Constellation lower that 30degs south,even got a glimps of the local group galaxy Sextans Dwarf, at mag12 this is a faint object, but with the seeing improving and a wide field eyepiece was quite noticeable, with a 13mm Nagler some stars where just resolved, I also observed the galaxies IC 2537 and PGC29194 in Antlia which are in the same field of view of a 13mm nagler, now I know what to look for this last galaxy gets easier to observe each time.
I gave away the Supernovae search and opened up the observatory to do some comet astrophotography with an off axis guider at F/10, spent most of the time trying to find a bright enough guide star,after many trials and tribulations I managed to get a couple of shots through the 20cm SCT, also took a couple piggyback shots, I don't know how they will turn out as I only use film, and have still quite a few shots on the reel,(now I know why I gave away astrophotograpy)
By this time Cygnus and some of the northern constellations where high enough enough to observe the Ring P/N (M57) the Dumbell(M27) and even though it was low down the Veil Nebula ,all three parts, Ngcs 6960,6992, and 6995.
Other objects observed where the Helix P/N(Ngc 7293) of course Jupiter which by this time had passed the Meridian and wasn't to bad , not as crisp as a couple of nights ago.
As the Temp was down to 6degsC and I was getting a bit tired I decided to call it a morning at 03:30.
Venus was just clearing my horizon when I put the scope away.
Another great nights observing at the Cambroon Observatory.
