MB, 1/19/2006

by Pentti Kanerva

I'd been waiting for reasonable skies at Monte Bello 'cause M74 had been playing hard to get from down home. Last night did it! It was also an opportunity to get Messier's open clusters east of Sirius, which hide behind some trees at home. Marek egged me on to the Eskimo nebula (NGC 2392) in Gemini, and to NGC 2362 open cluster and the "Winter Albireo" colorful double star in Canis Major, and showed me my first star spectra on his scope. Now there is vivid color (and some dark lines).

I now have all Messiers under 50--must be the easy ones. Remaining on the to-do list are a nebula, a globular, and over half of the galaxies between the 9 and 14-hour lines. As a warm-up, found the NGC 2903 galaxy between Leo and the Haystack, an elongated smudge. Good night.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 20, 2006 18:59:23 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 02, 2006 21:24:22 PT