by Gary Manning
Last Friday, Nov 24th, I met my observing buddy Randy Muller up at SVAS's HGO observatory in the Sierras. It had been a log time since I have been out observing under dark skies, the last time was in July at Lassen.
The night was cold but mostly clear. There were clouds to the north and south but east, west and above were clear. I had some very nice views of Jupiter and Saturn and watched the GRS transit.
The high point of the evening for me was M79, a bright glob in Lepus which has just cleared the horizon. It was very low in the sky and I could see silhouette of pine trees in the FOV. M79 was my last Messier. I have completed the list!
I continued working on the Herschel 400 list until about 12:30.
I had a great time (as always) and look forward to my next trip out.