The break between weather systems arrived on schedule last night, and I headed up to Montebello about 7:30 pm. Even after the drenching the area took on Tuesday, the hard pack parking lot was in good shape. Some small puddles of standing water around the edges, but there was no trouble with mud or water over the main surface. The sky was clear and reaonably dark, with only small groups of scattered clouds wandering through most of the night. I thought I would be there alone, but Jason Newquist arrived about 8 pm for second light with his new TV 101. Phil Chambers arrived shortly thereafter with binoculars (and cookies). So that made 3 of us for the night, good company and a good chance to observe after all the recent rain.
I started off looking at a few planetaries in my 7 inch Starmaster. NGC 2346 is a small PN in Monocerus I recently saw listed on Steve Gottlieb's Orion Deep Map 600. Surprisingly, it is not included in the extensive two volume Night Sky Observer's Guide. It took a bit of searching but I found a small glow that looked softer than the surrounding stars. An OIII filter helped bring out the halo and confirm the find.
Since the filter was in, I took a quick look at the much brighter Eskimo nebula in Gemini, and then turned to open cluster M46, a nice Messier object with a superimposed planetary on one side. The OIII filter made the 2438 PN stand out as a ring, but dimmed the cluster substantially. When I took the filter off, I actually preferred the view without it. The dense cluster of dim stars was much more impressive, and the planetary was still visible in the unfilterd view.
Jason tested out the wide field potential of the TV101 on the same region. M47 was just visible as a hazy patch against the winter milky way, making it possible to quickly swing the TV101 over to the right region using the Starbeam unit power finder. With a 35 mm Panoptic in the diagonal, it was possible to get several different clusters in a very pretty huge field including M47, M46, 2423 and Melotte 71. We played a bit with different eyepieces. I got to try out a 4 mm Radian in the Starmaster, which gave a great view of the 6 stars in the trapezium of M42. Jason experimented with my Vixen 24 to 8 mm zoom in the TV101. The speed and covenience of changing magnifications with this eyepiece still makes it my favorite for both finding and bringing out detail in many different objects.
I visited several other favorite Open Clusters. NGC 2477 is so low (Dec -40) in the sky that its often overlooked. Its a great rich cluster of dim stars down in Puppis, and worth checking at this time of year if you haven't seen it before. The Tau cluster in the tail of Canis Major is a dazzling showpiece of glittering points tightly visible around orangish Tau Canis Major, itself a triple.
Over the course of the night, I looked up a half dozen new galaxies from the Hershel 400 list, most in Sextans or Leo. NGC 2974 looked like a small elongated smudge projecting to the NE side of a Mag 11 or so star. 3115 had a bright core and was obviously elongated NE-SW. 3166 and 3169 were easily visible together in the same eyepiece view, both galaxies floating in a pretty collection of foreground stars that made a nice geometric pattern. 3521 in Leo was the brightest and largest galaxy of the night, an impressive glow that showed interesting mottling at higher power.
The moon started to rise above the horizon at 10:45 pm or so, and I finished the night with some double stars. Rigel was a pretty view with the dim companion showing easily next to the bright primary. Lambda Gemini is also a striking pair, with just enough brightness contrast to make it interesting.
I packed up shortly after 11 pm. Dew had formed everywhere, but the closed tube of the Starmaster, and the dew heater on the finder had made it possible to keep viewing. It was also cold last night, though there was very little wind. The thermometer on my telescope ran around 34 degrees most of the night, and ice had formed on the windows of some of the cars when we packed up. Despite the low temperature and the heavy moisture, it was great to be out under fairly clear skies. Sounds like Mark had a great night with Mimi, and I hope some others were able to take advantage of the night as well.