by Jamie Dillon
Last night late, at 12:30, I was heading for bed, took a look outside, and there were stars and planets all over the place. Phooey on it, went and got out the tripod and binocs for a half hour.
Scanned the sky around and thru Cassiopeia and Perseus. I always go back to the alpha Persei association, it being my first deepsky discovery, two years ago with binocs. Moving thru Cassiopeia, between delta and epsilon Cas, the arm toward Perseus. M103 and NGC 663 were bright along that arm. Seeing was 4/5, transparency was ca 4.5. This was with my old trusty Swift boat-use 7x50's.
Fun was 7789, off the end of the W, which is a knockout every rookie should cultivate. First time I'd caught that OC in binocs, and it was big and luscious there as well. Moving from the Double Cluster, ambling over toward Perseus' cap, I caught another cluster. Checked the chart when I got back in, and lo and behold it was Stock 23 (hope the number is right), Pazmino's Cluster, which I'd just caught from the Peak Saturday for the first time in Felix.
Scanned over the Big 3 in Auriga, M38, M36 and M37, didn't forget M31 which might just be the most spectacular binocular object of all, gazed at M42, caught 3 moons running in a line off Jupiter, one satisfyingly close, looked at the pretty cluster around Orion's head...
Then back to the sky between Cassiopeia and Perseus, to the one cluster off on the border of Camelopardalis, mine. I'm sure I dreamt about it.