Henry Coe 3/11/07

by Rob Enns

The weather was so nice on Sunday afternoon, and I was still smarting from bailing out of an observing session on Friday night. I decided to carpe the noctem and headed up to Coe for a short effort on a work night.

My weapon of choice was a 8" SCT, a Celestron Nexstar 8i. Fitted out with a new 9x50 finder, this thing is a star hopping machine. As a warm up I looked at Saturn, rising brightly in Leo. At 226x the Cassini division was wide and distinct, doing a good impression of the track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (I'd watched a few minutes of a NASCAR race earlier in the afternoon), and light brown bands were visible on the planet itself.

I also stopped in at M42, the first time I'd viewed it through a scope this year. Blows my mind every time. Seeing and transparency were both very good. The E star in the trapezium was easily visible at 226x.

My observing list for the evening was made up of remaining H400 objects in Ori and CMa. These objects are mostly OC's, and not particularly stunning at that. NGC 1980, 1999, 1788, 2169, 2194, 2204, 2360, 2354, and 2362 finished my target list. The gem of the bunch is NGC 2362, a beautiful collection of bright stars centered on the even brighter Tau Canis Majoris. I also stopped in at NGC 2367, which looks almost like 2 OC's side-by-side, just over the CMa border into Puppis.

After another long gander at Saturn I packed up and was out the gate at 11:15pm. Driving back down the hill I saw a bobcat cross the road! Way cool, and a first for me.

Rob