Saturday Night at Fremont Peak, a beginner's perspective.

I finally found out how to get a full night of observing in at Fremont Peak: You get your wife and child to visit relatives for two weeks, and somewhere in there you find the time ;-).

I'm rather new to observational astronomy, and between learning my way around the sky, learning how to collimate my scope and learning what can and can't be done in one night, I decided to try a list of mostly Messier objects on this evening. Sort of a "Messier 5k" instead of a Marathon.

My plans were quickly waylayed when I realized that the objects I had chosen weren't in a good order, and besides, that 4 day old Moon is so nice, why not look at it for a 1/2 hour? After collimating about as well as the scope is able to collimate, I got out my copy of Rukl, an 18mm Bertele (70x) and a 7mm Ortho (180x) to enjoy some time on the Moon and start to learn to identify features. There was Mare Crisium, Cleomedes, Trailes. Hmmm... Looks different from the book just a bit. Rukl isn't kidding when he says that libration makes the features look different. Up to Endymion. Hmmm.. what's this Mare to the West? Mare Humboldtianum, of course. Unlike the book, however, I can see nearly the entire Mare. Mare Marginalis was also easily visible. This is fun! I might have to try to observe the Pitatus Ray later this month ;-).

Its now after 9pm, lets try some Messiers. 65 & 66 are easy, as is NGC3628, even to my untrained eye. Now lets try M51, an object which for some reason I've had trouble finding in the past (ok, you can stop laughing now). Al-kaid, 24 Canum Venaticorum, M51. Easy! Wow, I might finally be learning how to handle a telescope. Lots of structure, 5195 right there, just a hint of a connection? Later in the evening after moonset it was spectacular, almost like a photo, even in my 12.5".

M104 was next. Look at the chart, visualize the position on the sky, move the scope. There it is, almost dead center! I must just be lucky. Very nice dust lane, it really does look kind of like a sombrero.

People set up near me were using binoculars and a 90mm refractor, both parties were new to astronomy, so I spent a lot of time showing them things in my (12.5") scope. So, I didn't exactly dash through my list, but it was a nice, warm, pleasant evening.

Other objects observed: M4, M19, NGC6293, M8, M63, M57, epsilon Lyrae (both cleanly split at 180x), M13, NGC6207 (I'm sure it will look bright to my eye in a year), M44, Melotte 111 and last, but not least, Jupiter.