by Dana Crom
I've been star-starved this last month - a 17 day business trip (to Ireland - nice country, horrible skies), clouds, and family obligations on some of the clear nights. Other than a Coyote session last Saturday, shortened by clouds, an early Sunday appointment, and a monster migraine, I've only managed a few quick looks with binoculars.
So when I got home last night and saw the sky was "sort of" clear, I grabbed the chance and stuck my XT6 out on the patio before dinner. My initial plan had been just a little time with the moon and Saturn, then pull it back in, so I went with the little scope rather than the 12.5" - if nothing else, the 6" would cool down faster.
20 minutes later -
The moon was lovely at ~85x (Pentax XL 14mm) - at this magnification the 65 degree field just framed the moon with a bit of sky showing. I had no formal plans but just drank in the view along the terminator - man, those are *serious* mountains.
After a while (10 minutes? 20?) I remembered my other target and moved to Saturn. Lovely, but Cassini's division was only sporadically visible. I moved up to 235x (Orion ED 5.1) - a much larger planet, but soft, fuzzy, and visibly wavering, probably because the scope wasn't totally cooled down yet. I decided to give it time, and went indoors to read Ferris's Seeing in the Dark. A couple of chapters later, I came out and looked again. Much better this time - seeing was still iffy, but it would occasionally settle down and give sharp views. At these moments Cassini's would go from "suspected" to "easily visible on entire ring". Transparency wasn't too great (high thin clouds scudding across), but the clear moments grabbed me - I'm not really a planetary observer but I spent a lot of time trying to tease out more detail.
This turned out for the best - while I'd been absorbed with Saturn, heavier clouds had covered the moon. I took advantage of the darker sky to switch back to the lower power eyepiece and look a little deeper. The M42/43 complex was rewarding as always. Between transparency and the smaller scope I didn't spend too much time teasing out details of the nebula, but after a long appreciative look (on the Trapezium, E was steady, F drifted in and out) went up and down the sword, taking in a broad view. Took a little detour to Sigma Or. - 4 components in view and another nice double visible across the field.
Since more clouds were blowing in, I decided to grab a few other favorites while I could -
M36 was disappointing - there, but the transparency wasn't good.
M38 was better - still faint, but the distinctive "Cross" asterism was fun to look at; NGC 1907 in the same field was more suspected than clear; I've seen it far better with the same scope and site.
M37 was probably the prettiest of the three, but still suffered horribly from the transparency (looking up, I could see thin wisps of cloud covering most of Auriga).
M35 was mostly in the clear; predictably, it was by far the best view (of course, it's my favorite winter OC anyway) - I spent several minutes playing connect-the-dots along its star chains. Unfortunately, the moon was in the clear again - though M35 was easy and bright, I wasn't able to convince myself I had really seen NGC 2158 clearly (glimpsed it, maybe).
By this time the clouds were thickening, so I packed things in after a farewell peek at Saturn.
No new finds, no real observing goals, and I didn't even open a star chart - but it did a lot to satisfy my yearning for old light. I can make it now until the next new moon. I think.