I arrived at HGO at 4:15 p.m., having made good time from Davis. My guest, Jane, was already there and had set up her 7 x 50 Celestron binoculars on a photo tripod. The tarmac was edged with snow on the East and West, but in between, theer were just a few patches of snow, and damp tarmac with a couple of small icy spots. I set up my 18" just a few feet north of my preferred spot on the southwest. There were some thin high clouds in the vicinity, which I hoped would dissipate during the night.
I began looking for M-57 at about 5:15, but due to clouds and light could not spot it. So I had some dinner, and waited until a bit before 6. When I looked again, M57 looked so good in my 30mm Widescan II that I boosted the magnification with my 13mm Nagler to about 160x. A close observation revealed details in the ring, and varying degrees of grightness and thickness. Jane and I enjoyed the view a great deal. From there, we viewed M15, at both low (68x) and medium (160x) power, and agreed it looked better at the lower power. "Lanes" were clearly visible in M15. We then viewed M81 and M82, but I could not spot NGC3077, due to the high clouds, which reduced the limiting magnitude in that part of the sky to about 5. From there, we viewed M13, which looked good, as we were able to resolve quite a few stars at medium power. However, the "sparkle" of the foreground stars was gone, again because of the high clouds.
We viewed the Veil at low power (using my 30mm Widescan II) with an OIII filter). An amazing amount of filamentary detail was visible. We viewed several parts of the Veil, noting some of the dimmer nebulosity near the middle as well. We then moved to M27, which we viewed first with a filter at low power, then at medium power with no filter, and finally with an Ultrablock at medium power. Here, we had the best detailed view, the "hourglass" shape disappeared and considerable filamentary detail was visible.
We then moved to M31 and enjoyed a wide-field view of Andromeda, as well as M32 and M110, with a dust lane in M31 clearly visible. I then turned the telescope to NGC253, which exhibited several dust lanes and looked very good at medium power, more than filling the field of view. From there I turned to M33, which was surprisingly clear. I inserted a Hydrogen Beta filter into my Widescan, and got a completely different view of M33. The middle of the galaxy now appeared as a relatively bright core, with bright areas extending along the spiral arms, though the arms themselves were so faint they were hardly visible. This could be seen at first only with averted vision, but it popped out so much that it was very easy to see with direct vision (or else, a cloud moved out of the way).
Jane had gone over to her binoculars. We located M33, and had a nice view. Then Jane turned the binoculars to M31, and we both were astonished at the spectacular wiew as it filled the field, with the arms of the galaxy clearly visible.
We viewed Saturn, which was resonably high, and the view was so good that we used high power (416x) to see Cassini's division, bands of color on Saturn, while the Encke minima popped in and out of view as the seeing danced around. The crepe ring was clearly visible against the disk of Saturn. At low power we saw six (maybe 7) satellites. It was a very good view considering the clouds.
NCG253 was at culmination at about this time, so we looked at it again. The view was not improved, as the cloud cover in the south appeared to have increased. So I checked out chart 4 in Sky Atlas 2000, and found the Blue Snowball, NGC7662. It looked very good at medium power, and I inserted my SW. AT about 320x, the "hole" in the middle was clearly visible, with the intense blue color of the planetary making a nice contrast. Next, I found M76 and we viewed it at 250x with a UHC. Quite a lot of detail was visible, and we noted the relative brightness of the southern part of the nebula, as well as the filamentary structure to the north.
By now, clouds had obscured the south and the north, so I decided to look at the Great Nebula in Orion, though it was low in the sky. The view was disappointing, as except for the trapezium, little nebular detail vas visible. So I turned the telescope toward Jupiter. Jupiter looked so clear at medium power, with at least 11 bands and the GRS visible, that I used high power, and still maintained a very clear image. We has fleeting seconds of outstanding views, when every detail seemed to leap forth, and I noted a couple of white festoons in one of the bands on two occasions. Finally, about 9:45, we has a last look at Saturn, which was OK, but by this time the clouds were serious. Decided to pack up at 9:47, and left HGO at 10:30. I tried to look for some other DSOs several times, but the clouds were too much for faint fuzzies.
The temperature never went below 40 degrees while we were there, and we could see the that the snow-covered areas shrank during the night. Limiting magnitude at the zenith was about 6 at best. The length of the observing session was nearly the equivalent of a midsummer night's viewing for me. I may have left out a few objects; if so, Jane may know which those are.