For the first time in, it seems, weeks, there weren't any clouds around in the SF Bay area. So out into the side yard! Yes!

...No...

The light pollution (for "some" reason, there was lots of moisture in the atmosphere, so it could be called a bit hazy) was out in force. The limiting magnitude was somewhere around 3 to 3.5, I guess (Beta Canis Minor, a 2.9, was barely visible).

What an "opportunity" to test the efficacy of filters. I tried both a wide band (Orion Skyglow) and an O-III filter on M42. Little to no difference to my eyes. The 5th and 6th stars in the trapezium, which had been playing peek-a-boo with no filter, were absent with either filter, however. So I went over to Zeta Orionis to see what the filters might do on the less-brilliant nebulae in that area. Here it seemed that both had some effect. The star had no visible haziness around it without a filter, but some showed up with the Skyglow and perhaps a little more with the O-III. In neither case did the nebulosity settle down into a "definitive" pattern, and it was still hard to see.

Being a techie-type person and fond of doo-dads, and having had some money (note use of past tense...), I have gone out and gotten one of the Rainbow Optics spectroscopes. This was the first time I was able to use it, and I looked at Rigel, Betelgeuse, Castor, and Pollux with it. I was definitely able to see several absorbtion lines in the spectrum of Betelgeuse, and the difference in the weight of colors (more red, less blue) between it and Rigel pretty easily. Castor and Pollux were more coy about any obvious features and looked about the same to me, and similar to Rigel more than Betelgeuse. I should note that there is a time-lag and human-memory "filter" in those remarks, because it takes a bit of time to move from one star to the other, and you can't compare the two spectra side-by-side. If anyone else in this area has another spectroscope, it might be interesting to get two stars in view at the same time and do quick eyepiece-to-eyepiece comparisons using two scopes. I might add that the spectra are quite beautiful. They also show up seeing problems quicker than the stars do; that is, a reasonably steady star image will have waviness in its spectrum (this waviness moving at right angles to the red-blue axis of the spread-out light).

Not the most experienced observer, I set out to see what I could see in the strip of sky (I only have a small view between my house and the neighbors, facing east, from the zenith to about 30 degrees up from the horizon, and limited on both ends by big trees). Consulting the star chart, I see M1. Fool that I am (more experienced observers are by now ROTFL, given the earlier comments about 3-3.5 limiting magnitude), I set out to find it. No luck. Go and consult the star-hopping book, put the (barely visible) correct star in the NE corner of the finder. Should be in the opposite side of the field. Nope. Hunt around. Get lost. Go back and try again...nothing. Go and read a bit more...no comments about being especially difficult. Go all around the guidepost star (Zeta Taurus? I can't remember as I type this in the morning) looking. About this time the part of the sky is going behind the rain gutter, so I give up. Thus ended the ignominous failed hunt for the Crab Nebula.

Played with the spectroscope some more, looking at stars in the Milky Way at random, but didn't find anything especially fascinating to report. The view can get a bit confused with several stars and spectra strewn about the field. Then I packed it in.