by Jamie Dillon
Aperture Man, Liam and I formed the crew at Dinosaur Point on New Moon Saturday night. there were bright clear stars everywhere, with moments of rare fine seeing. Big moment for me was seeing the Merope nebula for the first time. And I've looked at the Pleiades plenty. Just caught a window when the seeing was 5/5, excellent, and there was the wispy nebula right around Merope. Paul came over and saw the same thing, lovely.
Paul's big success of the night was a really great image of M96. I hadn't known it's a barred spiral. This CCD pic showed the bar, with arms in crisp detail.
That dark band along the equator of Saturn is getting darker! Interesting. Saw 4 moons at once (ZZ eat your heart out).
There were views in Felix of M82 with detail for days, and M65-66-3628 that were worth the price of admission. Liam had a fine time looking at star fields in Canis Major with Lucy the RFT90, as well as a cool gander at the Double Cluster. As midnight was approaching, Liam was crapped out and cozy in the van, Paul stared thinking of home, we packed up. Great night observing with really fine company.
Coming down into Hollister, there was lo and behold a rainstorm going on. At home, there were bright stars across the sky, with Coma Berenices shining over the roof.
Esp public thanks to Canis Australis for sticking around for the good fun.