by Sander Pool
Last night I figured I'd hop out for a quick 5 Messier snap 'n grab from the driveway. M1, M45, M34, M35 and M78. I added M45 because I didn't have an official entry in my DAS logbook yet even though it's one of those duh DSOs.
Well M34 was way too close to Z to be comfortably pointable with my polar aligned C8 so I tried to locate M78. Nope too much crud. Orion wasn't that high yet and the sky was distinctly orange. On to M1. Try as I might there was nothing there but empty sky. I considered going back inside to print a more detailed finder chart but seriously, who wants to retreat back inside after the cold starts to take a hold of your ankles?
Ok, M45 was a snap so I could log that. On to M35. This is where it got interesting. There was enough light from the moon by then that the star Propus 1 Gem was not visible with the naked eye. This led me to think that Eta and Mu Gem were the two stars I was looking for. As I'm scanning the sky in the area where M35 should be I think I see a faint OC. Looking at CdC now this was probably Cr 89 but somehow it seemed too spread out to have attracted Messier's interest. Two distinct stars between my guidance stars also didn't show so I was pretty sure I wasn't looking in the right place. It's just that I couldn't figure out where/what/how. I then convinced myself I was actually looking at Chi1 and Chi2 Ori but this didn't explain where Propus 1 Gem and Eta Gem were. Finally I grabbed my binos and saw the problem. Adjusted the aim of the scope and whadayano. There's the double (well it looks like one) of 3 Gem and SAO 78063. 5 Seconds later M35 popped into view, almost filling my 40mm. What a reward. Pictures on seds.org don't really do it justice. *Now* I knew I found what I was looking for.
So, with only 1 real observation logged I went inside feeling completely satisfied with how I'd chosen to spend my evening.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Nov 21, 2005 10:34:22 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 16, 2006 20:25:37 PT