An odd thing happened on the way to the observatory last night...it cleared up! So, after rolling the roof off and turning on the cooling fans for the mirror, I looked up and indeed it was still clear and it was not some dream. Will wonders never cease! Using the 22" kludge for visual work, I concentrated on galaxies and discovered some rather interesting groupings on the way. Transparency started out a 6 and then dropped to a 5 later in the evening and seeing started out a 6 and dropped to a 4. Temperature started out at 47 and dropped to 44 while humidity started out at 80% and climbed to 86%. Dew point stayed stable at 43 while there was a slight breeze from 7 to 3 MPH. I started about 9 pm and ended about 11:30 when clouded out.
First on the list was the NGC 128 group (of galaxies). 128 is the largest of this grouping, appearing as a slightly out of round object, with even surface brightness. Ngc 130, at m 14.90 was a tad tougher since it is almost touching 128. NGC 127, slightly to the W is dimmer but easier than 130 since it is well away from the larger object. Final object of grouping, NGC 125 had two magnitude 13 stars running up to it or leading to it and they made a nice contrast with the galaxy (all with 12 Nagler, 231X).
NGC 257 yet another galaxy at m 13.4 slightly oval and some texturing across the surface with a 12 Nagler (231X). There was a very dim star to its W side, almost touching the object.
A nice find was the NGC 383 grouping of galaxies. This was an interesting area to explore and I wish I had more aperture! Starting with NGC 379 at m 13.91, dropped south to NGC 380, then to NGC 383 with 382 very close. Slightly SE is NGC 386, then S to 385 and finally to 384. The last three were in the magnitude 14 range. Also picked up NGC 388 at m 15.06 and UGC 679 at m 15.62. Last object picked out of the less than ideal sky was NGC 375 at m 15.15. These galaxies were nothing more than dim smudges, little or no detail was seen with them visually.
Next was the NGC 474 grouping. 474 was larger than the rest and with a 9 Nagler (309X) its surface assumed a peppered or textured look. West of this object is NGC 474 and to the SW is NGC 467, both near a m 7 star which provided a neat contrast to the dimmer galaxies. Somewhat S of this star is the little glow of a galaxy MCGO-4-82 at m 15.3-this object was tough and when I looked up I noticed that a thin band of high clouds had moved in and was making a nuisance of itself!
Turning to Jupiter and Saturn, I realized that my observing run was over for deep sky work and for planets as well-the sky was clouding up and the seeing had gotten quite a bit worse. So I shut the computers off, rolled the roof back, and called it a night. And not a bad night it was considering that we have had so much rain as of late.