I set up my Starmaster 7 inch Dob near home last night around midnight. A minuteman missile launch was due from Vandenberg around 1 am. In addition, I had only one object still to go on the Hershel 400 list observing project started about 18 months ago. NGC5866 had somehow fallen through the cracks of previous sessions. I had intended to finish the H400 last weekend at Henry Coe and Fiddletown. but later found that I had forgotten to include 5866 on my marked up sky atlas. It turned out to be an easy final object last night, even under suburban mag 5 skies with a sinking 1st quarter moon. Up to the long chain of stars in Draco, a bit over with the finder scope, and there was a pretty little oval galaxy in the eyepiece, elongated SE-NW, and very close to a field star. My sky atlas lists it around mag 10, and approximately 40 million light years away. By a surprising coincidence, the photons arriving from that distant galaxy last night simultaneously completed not only the H400 list, but perhaps the Messier list as well.
I had written off M102 when I finished the Messier list a year ago because I had heard that Mechain himself had said it was a mistaken reobservation of M101. However, the sky atlas that I was using last night mentioned that some people consider 5866 to be M102. I found a site on the web today with nice pictures and a good summary of some reasons for thinking that Messier may have observed 5866 himself, regardless of whether Mechain did. (see http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m102d.html).
No matter what you think of M102, NGC5866 has earned a special place in my own heart as a single observation that brought an official end to both the Messier and Herschel 400 lists. And as if to commemorate the occasion, Vandenberg launched a missile shortly after I finished logging 5866. The orange flame of the minuteman rose slowly from the SW horizon in a long slow loop to me west. I followed with 15 x 45 binoculars, and enjoyed the trail of the rocket, and a sudden white puff visible at a stage separation along the arc. Then I observed a few more favorites, packed up the scope, and headed back home to sleep and to dream of other observing projects.