Comet Lulin

Wed 25th Feb 09, 11:50pm
San Diego Home.
Scope: Orion 10" xti
with Ashwin.

Weather was fine. No clouds. Jut too many lights near house stairs.

Lulin was around 2-3 deg SE from Regulus.

The fuzziness barely visible thru naked eye. Easy catch thru binocs..faint fuzzy.. No green color indication thru binos. In 40mm, Lulin green color visible. No Tail. Its like green globular. not really spherical shape.. but lil elliptical.. bright at the core and fainter & fainter @surrounding.. In 25mm, not a impressive view.. lil blurry. In 9mm, internal coma visible. really bright at the core. Overall, didn't see comet's tail, probabaly being nearby house lights..

Spent some time on Saturn. all eyepiece views were nice.. 9mm was the best. sharp-crispy clear image. rings visible as fine line. Didn't see any gas bands. 4 moons visible. 2 each side.

Recap Year '08 and Plan for '09

Astronomy kicked in Phase II finally. Started serious deep sky observations with 6" and then to 10" personal scopes. With Deep Sky Objects, new sky has opened up.

- Bought Orion XTi 10 Intelliscope.
- Met Jon Isaacs. His help and advice has been proved priceless.

- Total Observations: 16 = 14 documented + ~2 un-documented.

In year '09 :
- Number of observations should double.. atleast 26 !!
- Messier Marathon
- RASC Finest NGC object list
- SAC Best of NGC object list

First Dark Night with Orion XTi 10 - I

Date: 17th Jan 2008, Saturday
Observation Time: 6:00pm to 11:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Excellent.. Seeing and Transparency 8/10.. winds picked up around 11pm.
Instruments: New Orion XTi 10, Rick's 12.5" dob, Tony's 8" dob and Bret's 24" dob. Bunch of new eyepieces.
Buddies: Rick, Tony and Bret

Total objects: 40 DSOs + 2 planets
New : 11

Best of the Night: M46 Planetary Nebula and All tiny galaxies in Leo.

First night of the new year.. looks like astronomy for this year started way too early :).. hopefully continues like this..

Objective of the night is to:
- test the new scope
- compare all eyepieces
- check intelliscope performance and functions
- some sky browsing.

Vertical Alignment. Hard.. TDS public pad is indeed slanted a lot.. this is gonna be tricky.. Is vertical stop connection to the scope really required for intelliscope ??

Connected Telerad. Placement is not ideal, but not bad either.. didn't have much choice because of finder location.

Rick from next pad helped to do the collimation with laser collimator.. secondary was lil bit hard to align.. somehow its really tight.. don't know why.. do i need to loose the central screw lil bit ?? ..any way will buy Howe gladder laser collimator this week.. Rick showed me a way to collimate without barlow.. sort of.. he mentioned that barlow is really not required.. only trouble is moving up-down to see and move screws.. that should be okay..

Worst mistake of the night.. Intelliscope battery down.. when i checked the status form home.. it was up.. but i didn't realize that its not good enough to see at night.. i have used this thing in Nov, and it was good.. i must have left it on since then :(..needs new battery now.. the problem was i wasn't able to use it for whole night.. that was one of my objectives at TDS today..zero outcome.. next time !!

Venus: Impressive. 45% phase. Too much waving. Probably scope also wasn't cooled down. MAx magnification with 9mm expanse.. 4.5mm failed.. higher mags didn't help much to see any details.. in the view.. i noticed that when Venus at the edge of eyepiece, it had violet tint on west i.e. bright side. but as the Venus moved to center of the field of view, the violet tinge reduced. Again increased as the movement towards the edge of the eyepiece.. is it indeed eyepiece ?

M42 Orion Nebula: Spent really long time tasting eyepieces.

Tony's celestron axiom 25mm on 8' dob: 82deg field of view.. impressive view.. star crowded sky.. Orion in the middle.. dark tower visible.. trapezoid visible.. second dark tower perpendicular to main one clearly visible..

40mm GSO: View wasn't bad.. 60 deg FOV. but stars at the edge were stretched and looked like streaks.. bad eyepiece at the edges.. Again barrel length was trouble so have to take out the glasses.. second tower wasn't visible..still good view.

32mm E-Lux: Impressive view.. stars were fine. trapezoid barely visible.. i think 3 stars of it visible. second tower was visible, but not yet clear..

25mm 1.25' and 25mm 2': Second tower visible, but not as clearly as tony's. ..hmm eyepiece quality :) .. $150 ?? trapezoid visible.. compared both my 25mm eyepieces. FOV is larger in 2' vs 1.25'.. definitely.. but i felt that 1.25' is lil bit better in contrast as compared to 2'. i was able to focus better on stars with 1.25'.. also m43 nebulous area was better in 1.25'

10mm X-cel: marvelous view.. all nebulous details in second tower visible. Trapezoid 5th star was in. wasn't aware that there is 6th one two..

9mm expanse: surely better field of view.. no other difference than 10mm x-cel.

35mm Teleview Panoptic on ricks 12.5' dob: 07deg FOV. MArvellous view.. second tower was there..lil bit in-out of focus. still picture was marvelous. 3 out of 4 trapezoid visible. Still with high mags didn't see 6th star. rick tried to explain me the location, but didn't find it.

M43: In 25mm dark region within M43 visible.. western part (left) definitely larger than eastern (right)

Perseus double cluster: Rick TV 35mm view impressive.. pinpoint stars.. mine 32mm was fine too.. stars were perfect pint point.. that shows precise collimation..

M31 Andromeda: Rick TV 35mm: Clear view of whole M31..Dust lane was good.. indeed was getting a feeling of it.. M110 and M32 visible.. but too tiny. My 40mm: M32 & M110 wre but too tiny.. but this eyepiece indeed shows the length/glow of m31.. just too large.. dust lane wasn't much impressive. My 32mm showed the dust lane.. but it wasn't as good as rick 35m.. again eyepiece quality..

M33 Triangulum: Forgot the location. Rick got it.. fuzzy object.. no details visible ..m33 thru bret's 24inch and bino-view marvelous.. hydrogen region was visible at right corner.. also watched so many dark lanes in m33.. the whole view was full of it.. also sort of got a 3d perception.. must be because of bino-view. In bino-view mag calculation is different..view was around 150x. thru my 32mm or higher mags, just a fuzzy object, no details visible... aperture helps.

Blue snowball NGC7662: okay.. not that great.. really tiny.. i was expecting more.. compare with Jon's 10' dob.

M81-M82: impressive. M81, on left, seems as big fuzzy.. M82 on right seems edge on.. One tiny galaxy NGC3077 (new) right angled above M81. Used 40mm for finding.. 32mm view good.. 25mm was better and showed the dark edge on M82.. 10 mm possible.. but no other details..impressive view thru Rick's 35mm panoptic 70deg FOV.. Tony's 25mm wasn't that impressive considering 80deg FOV.. too much magnification..

M41 OC in CMa: Visible naked eye - don't remember much.. Thru 40mm: Curved lines

M46-M47 OC pair in Pup: Thru 40mm.. M46-M47 barely fits in same view.. M46 stars are pinpoint and concentrated like double cluster.. while M47 is normal dispersed bright stars. 25inch SDAA scope thru 31mm (2500mm focal) shows a nebula.. impressive view. In the nebula itself there was a concentric circle (i think).. indeed impressive.. Thru my 32mm. barely visible for me.. 25mm impressive.. bluish visible.. cluster and PN in it indeed impressive.. 6mm was still good - 10mm lost it.. M46 farther than M47.. PN is actually not in M46 but much closer to us than OC.

M50 in Mon (new): Yet another OC. Don't remember much.

M93 in Pup (new): Really tiny OC.. salt-paper.. too low on horizon

M36-M38-M37 in Auriga: Quick browse. Was overhead. lil bit hard to catch it.. Visible naked eye m36-m38.. bino view was great for all three.

M44 Beehive OC in Cancer: Thru 40mm eyepiece..impressive.. beehive visible.. but 25mm view better to see beehive triangles.

M67 OC in Cancer: Yet another.. nothing impressive..

M35 OC in Gem (New): SDAA scope impressive.. bright yellowish stars. and tiny OC NGC1258 (new) next to it.. this ngc looked like M93.. fine view in my 32mm also.. seen it before thru binocular

First Dark Night with Orion XTi 10 - II

Continued..

Horsehead Nebula IC 434: Fought for it.. dark nebula.. star was too bright.. with filter 18mm and without filter on 14mm.. without filter view was better.. but still didn't see Horsehead.. need to identify the precise location.. It seems like we were looking at NGC2024 flame nebula.. we were looking at north.. we should be looking 2-3 deg south..

M1 Crab: In 40mm visible.. 32mm was good.. Know precise location. Supported all higher magnifications.. 25mm - 16mm still good.. lost location in 10mm.. No internal detail visible in higher mags.

Leo Stars: Near Regulus UGC5470 not visible.. i thought i had seen it thru Jon's 10" dob.. verify. caught all stars. Gamma is yellow and has blue companion, but separated by large margin.. Yellow color was impressive.. Watched all stars.. Denebola was too low.

Saturn: looking for Saturn in Leo.. but nothing bright.. got too confused.. but found it next to iota leonoid.. 40mm no rings.. 32mm rings as a line.. but not able to focus.. too low on horizon. verify satellite locations.. two on top (west)..one was really far.. and two below (east).. higher mags didn't help much either.. wavy view.

Leo M95-M96-M105 Triplet galaxies: Star 53 visible averted.. easy catch of galaxies. Saw lot of NGCs nearby in 40mm itself.. M95-M96, M105-NGC3384, NGC3412 (new), NGC3377 (new) next to star 52.. also by using map, located NGC3367 circular galaxy (new), NGC3338 (new). Also, 32mm/25mm mag was best view. It also showed M105-NGC3384-NGC3389. familiar 3 star alignment also.. Brightness M105 > NGC3384 > NGC3389. Large: NGC3389 > NGC3384..

Leo M65-M66-NGC3628 Triplet: Star 73 visible thru averted vision. triplet easy catch.. this triplet much better than m95-m96-m105 triplet. NGC3628 is perfect edge on. Looking at map, found all tiny guys.. NGC3593(new) and NGC3596 (new) next to theta leonoid..

TBD:
- Intelliscope battery
- Observe each object more carefully. M46 is an example of ignorance.
- Observation Plan is necessary
- Too cold out there

Testing Orion 10" intelliscope setup..

Date: 1st Nov 2008, Saturday
Observation Time: 6:00pm to 7:30pm (1:00 hrs)
Location: MTRP, CA
Weather: 80% cloudy, Sky was in & out
Instruments: New 10” dob & bunch of new eyepieces.
Buddies: Philip and Jack (MTRP Ranger)

Bought a 10" dob last sunday. Orion XT10 intelliscope. I observed jupiter from home, but this was sort of real first session with the dob to test the whole setup and new eyepieces. GSO40mm supeview, Celestron Xcel 10mm and Celestron E-lux 2" 25mm.

Scope wasn't fully collimated. Still not fully comfortable with optics.. Really need laser collimator.

Weather wasn;t friendly either today. Too much cloudy. I think because of clouds, though transparency was bad, the seeing was excellent. So planetary observation was excellent.

Venus phase (New): Venus was best view ever for me.. This is first time I ever saw phase of Venus. I guess the phase was around 70% waxing. Confirm it. (?? Confirmed from heavens-above). With 10mm xcel eyepiece, 120x showed me the phase clearly and luckily, 2x barlow on it, 240x magnification was still in focus. It was fabulous. Orangish-Red color on top-left (NW) edge of venus, while the bottom-right (SE) edge was lil bit greenish. I remember Jon told me abt colors last time.. but I forgot.. Need to read more (??)

Moon: Moon was fine.. the clarity and shaprness of craters was clearly visible. Didn't spend much time in detailed observation.

Tried Jon's GSO 40mm Superview eyepiece. Though i have cleaned the eyepiece, its inner surface is still really dirty. (??)..

Jupiter: With 25mm eyepiece, 48x, Jupiter bands were visible. With 10mm xcel, 120x, it was pretty sharp image. didn't see any other details.

Compared the eyepiece field of view with the Jon's 9mm expanse eyepiece. With Jupiter's moons I was able to get judgment. Indeed expanse had more field of view..probably 7-10 deg more. but i felt that image contrast in xcel was better than expanse.. Need to confirm (??)

Tested the R&P focuser on Jupiter sharpness. focuser is ill bit tight. After using Crayford, use of R&P is indeed undesirable.. the view shakes lil bit while focusing. Need to loose the focuser lil bit. Still.. focuser did excellent job to get the sharp view. Didn't feel like I am compromising on the view...

Alignment and Object locator testing : Spent some time with the "intelliscope".. Two star alignment.. Pointed to Vega. Wasn't able to get a star 60deg away from Vega.. so pointed to Altair.. warp factor was +1.1.. for first shot not bad.. but still should have done better.. but didn't spend much itme becasue of cloud cover rolling in.

Used the intelliscope, to confirm location of Deneb. It was within +/- 1-2deg error margin.
To locate all other objects, used intelliscope.

Alberio: In 25mm view, though not in center. Image was not that great.. yellow-orangish and white-bluish star pair visible. wasn;t the greatest view.

Double Double: Its a good test for eyes, collimation and eyepiece. Again wasn't the greatest view. I think scope wasn;t fully collimated, so was lil bit hard to see the resolving at 10mm eyepiece, 120x.. It should have been perfect at this magnification. but i got the perfect view, at one particular focus.

Again, R&P focus is lil bit tight to handle.

M57 Ring: Pointed to M57 and then checked intelliscope co-ords. In 9mm eyepiece, 135x not the greatest view. Star at2pm missing.. fuzzy ring was visible, but image wasn't sharp. but in 10mm image was great. Star at 2pm visible. I am not sure if transperency got improved within 2mins or not... but image was bright and ring was indeed better than 9mm. Still need to confirm this contrasting aspect in eyepiece comparison.

M31 Andromeda: found out that intelliscope really helps.. It was hard for me to see any reference stars in the clouds... but intelliscope helped...I am too glad that I have it.. worth the money... M31 not the greatest view... clouds to blame. With GSO 40mm widefield.. M32 was lil bit hard, but somehow M110 was visible. Isn't that lil bit contradicting.. any way becasue clouds, didn't think much.

M11 wild duck cluster: Intelliscope for rescue.. but not right on target.. Really hard to see in the finder. I got it once.. bad view..

In 40mm, tried to focus, but felt than focuser tube length is not enough for such a low magnification (30x)... Need to verify the relationship between maximum focuser length and min magnification supported (??)... again i might be wrong.. Need to go to dark sight for perfect focus.

Overall, to summarize..

Intelliscope is indeed a great addition for me.. surely help me in verifying locations and in bad weather. Need to learn better tactics to get warp factor below 0.5

Xcel 10mm eyepiece is probably great addition, if my perception abt image contrast is correct.. though field of view is smaller than 9mm, still image details matter

Not much happy with GSO 40mm superview...again.. weather might be the factor here.. Need to check Orion nebula or Lagoon-Triffid combo in this.

The 2" type of 25mm eyepiece...not sure if it is great or not.. lil bit of pain while swapping eyepieces, because of 2"-.1.25" adapter. Still will check in next few observations..

Indeed glad with the whole scope.. images were good as expected.. during collimation, realized there are coule of spots/scratches at the center of primary mirror. Need to confirm from Jon, if any drawbacks.. Precise collimation is necessary (double-double is the proof)..

Telerad is must... Finding Vega was difficult as hell :) .. It wasn't clouds..it wasn't location either.. but it was me.. and i call myself starhopper ;-D

Quick Browsing..

Date: Oct 29th 2008, Wednesday
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 8:00pm (1:00 hrs)
Location: Jon's place, San diego, CA
Weather: Seeing was good.... but city lights.
Instruments: Jon's 10” dob
Buddies: Jon.

Had a quick night sky browsing from Jon's place. I went to his place to return his scope.

Double Double: Excellent sight. and good split...forgot magnification

M57 Ring: Thru Jon's 32mm Televue Panoptic eyepiece, it was marevellous.. Wide file do of view really helps to get the "cosmic" filing. Star at 2pm was clearly visible.

Ophiuchus Double star (New): Don't know which one was this. But one was orange and other was yellowish. Bright contrast colors.

NGC 6633 OC (New): Really widespread .. don't remember much.

IC4756 OC (New): Jon said he likes this one.. but again ..it was really wide spread.. not that impressive.

NGC 6527 Green Nebula: Exceptionally beautiful. The contrast is probably better than ring nebula. I see blue color, but Jon mainly sees green color. Jon located this object this in a minute.. last time i wasn't able to locate it..

M56 GC (New): first time saw it... easy to locate. In 32mm Televue Panoptics, it was faint. With 40mm GSO SuperView, it was really really faint.

M29 OC: Caught it again..and just with experience of one observation last saturday :).. Nice H shape.

NGC 6910 OC (New): Next to Gamma Cyngni. This is an indeed interesting object.. fuzzy V shape..Felt like some dust in it.. some of the stars are close while others are separated.

Blinking PN: Jon tried to find this one, but he needed to refer to the map.. and thru my sat experience, i caught it in a minute... I was impressed that i was able to find it before him :)..In 32mm eyepiece it was hard to see ..but still in the view. Magnification helps... At highest magnification, ring out of focus, but still see some central brightness.. probably thats the star.

Jupiter Satellite transition: Saw Jupiter satellite transition. Becasue of bad seeing, jupiter was going in & out of focus ... while in focus, the black satellite shadow is strikingly dark..more you concentrate, darker it begins.

Last light with Jon's 10" dob - Part I

Date: Oct 25th 2008, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 12:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Seeing was okay..not great. improved after 11pm, probably because of marine layer on SD. Its getting really cold too..
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs.
Buddies: Greg (Advanced amateur astronomer)

Total: 26 objects, 1 Asteroid
New Objects: 10

Returning Jon's 10" dob this week, so went for last observing session from this dob. This dob indeed gave me new perspective in handling big aperture telescope and understanding night sky.

Venus: Too low on horizon, so everything was bit wavy...

M8 Lagoon & M17 Swan: Quick glance to these old objects :).. makes you feel good. Night wasn't that dark enough to see the dark rift in lagoon clearly. swan was impressive. Two stars parallel to neck are clearly visible.

M13: Hercules globular was impressive. it always makes me feel if I would have had more aperture. Showed it to the scout group.

M30: I have seen better views of M30.. with 9mm also it still wasn't crispy and clear.

Saturn Nebula NGC7009: Again not the crisp view.. but the bluish disk stands out well. wasn't that much trouble in tracking either.

M72: Tiny globular... can be vividly seen thru binocs. Quick glance thru the dob.

M73: The asterism triangle is beautiful. One of the object that still can't see thru binocs.

Helix Nebula NGC7293: faint big fuzzy... 135x also doesn't show any details inside..

Asteroid Vesta (New): I think I got it.. it seems like one of the Jupiter's moon in high magnification with lil bit out of focus.. brown yellowish in color. Tried on 22" observatory, but nobody helped or enthu there... more aperture helps here too.. I should ask Jon to catch it some time.

NGC 253: edge on spiral Galaxy in sculptor. Greg told me look at it.. and this is precisely the same galaxy which Jon had shown me before. I got it confused with sculptor dwarf.. indeed beautiful. it fills up almost 80% of my 32mm eyepiece (38x). More magnification indeed shows more in the galaxy. i felt there is some dark lane vertical within the galaxy. Galaxy runs in angular fashion to pair of star alignment.

NGC 258 (New): Really faint globular next to 253 and sort of next to south galactic pole.

Sculptor Dwarf: failed.. need to check mags. compare it with ngc253

M57 Ring Nebula: Not the greatest view again... but nice bluish disk and its 2" star in field of view.

Veil nebula: Thru 22" its fabulous, you can see the whole filament near cygni 52 star so well that it indeed shows that the dust is everywhere, but just a star next to it causes it to glow in nice shape.. the crisp clear image also gave me 3d perspective... i think magic of nagler and filters... thru my dob in 32mm without filter, it was like a faint white streak among background stars... still i saw all 3 components of the veil.

North American Nebula NGC7000, Pelican Nebula IC5067: Failed.. read more..

Last light with Jon's 10" dob - Part II

Crescent Nebula NGC6888: Failed... indeed frustrating... this one is listed as top 10 deep sky object for October sky and it was unbelievably hard to find.. just spent too much time, but still no success.. Greg mentioned to me that without filter its hard...

M29 (New): Curved H - nice tiny open cluster.. in H shape.. but vertical lines curved outside.

Berk86 (New): open cluster in V shape, next to M29

Blinking Planetary NGC6828 (New): This was perfect catch. Star, in one field of view a pair and half field of view, the blue lil tiny disk in 32mm eyepiece. its hard to se it in 32mm.. but lil bit more magnification shows it well.. no blinking effect in 10" aperture.. but looks good... probably less brighter than blue snowball. Need to revisit for details.

IC 1396 cluster and nebulosity: In Cephus, listed as best object for telescopes and binocs... but failed..

M33 Triangulum: From Greg's 10". sort of able to see the spiral structure.. in two arms.

M74 (New): In Pisces, Nominal fuzzy object visible thru binocs also.

M77 galaxy (New): In Cetus. Bizzar shape sort of like m30, but only with a star.. high magnification didn't help to resolve much either. but this is indeed an interesting object. need to revisit. its tiny fuzzy.. I wonder how messier saw this.. wasn't able to see much thru binocs. Tiny galaxies 1055 and 1087 are on opposite sides of M77. Its hard to distinguish if they are galaxies or tiny globulars...probably for tiny globulars they seem bluish..but these tiny fuzzies didn't.

Mira: Didn't know what to look for in the star. Read more.

Caroline cluster in Cassiopeia (New): Don't know the NGC number. open cluster like wild duck, but really spread over large area.. like sprinkled salt.. but really faint. all the stars seem like field stars, but no other stars in vicinity near the cluster, hence all the stars in the view can be treated as part of open cluster

Uranus: Quick glance at bluish disk.. nothing interesting.

Spectrographs of Antares and Vega (New): graph, Vega graph was on left side, showing blue wavelengths. It Greg showed me his spectrograph which he has collected form SBIG instrument. Antares graph was sort of in red wavelength (right), Showed multiple heavy dips representing element titanium. and one h-alpha dip. compared to Antaresdidn't have any titanium dip, but it had all h-alpha, h-beta lines. mainly showing hydrogen and helium. On right side, there was one big dip showing water vapor, because of earth's atmosphere. All the dips indicate absorption lines, while all peaks indicated sort of reflection lines.

M1 Crab Nebula: Easy catch.. Still not able to see any details in crab. elongated fuzzy disk..

M42 Orion Nebula + M43: The best view I have ever seen. Marvellous. First time from TDS. At 38x, viewing thru 32mm eyepiece gave me a feeling that the whole cosmos is indeed full of dust, but we can not see it, until there is a star nearby. The reflection of nearby stars indeed gives the shape to the nebula. I really experienced this textbook definition with orion nebula. At 38x, almost 80% eyepiece filled up. M42 with deep dish shape with two dark columns perpendicular to each other visible. Deep dish dust is so much that on one side nebula is bright, while on opposite side non of the light passes thru. On opposite side, M43 visible as white fuzzy ball. The trapezium in M42 dark column is visible with only 4 stars. 5th star barely visible. More magnification on this gives more. In the dark columns, got the 3D feeling.

M78 (New): Easy catch. Bright star with dark nebula column. 3D feeling. The dust is indeed so much you will see reflected light on one side. This makes the nebula shape.

Horsehead Nebula: Failed. Difficult to catch.

SDAA BBQ Night - Part I

Date: 29th Sept 08, Saturday.
Observation Time:
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Weather was excellent. Lil bit windy initially. but crisp clear
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs.
Buddies: Pete.

Total Objects: 17 (Incomplete)
New Objects: 13

Another great session at TDS. It was SDAA's annual BBQ party too. Had a hosting training session for the 22inch telescope.

Caught lot of new objects...

Initially, I wanted to cover all the M's near horizon.

M3 (New): Nicely aligned bten arcturus and canes venatici. Arc of arcturus and star above perfectly points to M3. Visible in binocs and finder 9x50. Really bright and widespread. core is tightly packed, but There seems to be branch of stars coming out if it. all stars resolvable in that branch in 9mm.

M5 (New): located Exactly opposite of M3. Easy to catch with serpens Caput last two stars. Binocular object. Tiny, tightly packed and fainter than M3.

M94 (New): Tiny galaxy in canes venatici. easy to catch. Seems to be tiny fuzzy, elliptical. It’s faint. Wonder how messier find this object.

M63 Sunflower Galaxy (New): Again easy catch. Edge on. lil bit brighter and bigger than M94. can not see any sunflower shape.

M101: really Fainter. Seems face on. still bigger than M63 or M94. On opposite side of M101. there is a galaxy triplet (IC #).

M51 Whirlpool galaxy: both galaxies clearly visible.. broken eight shape. no details visible in 32mm x 2x (16mm). I guess aperture is the key here.

M11 Wild duck cluster: Rich OC with thousands stars. It’s a failed globular cluster probably.One bright star at the center while a pair outside the cluster. Three dark regions making a triangle with each other. Can not see any stars in there. Can resolve almost all stars... cluster doesn't fit in 9mm eyepiece 135x.

Opphiuchus Clusters (New):
Browsed thru Opp. clusters. IC 4665 is indeed bright and beautiful in binocs. At 38x, fills whole eyepiece. 4-5 yellow stars. Not sure what is Cr 350. NGC 6426 was an easy catch. really tiny. Barely able to make it with 38x.

M10 & M12 (New): At the center of constellation. M10, a star, a pair and then M12 forming a line. can not fit in same binocular view. M12 seems bigger than M10. On M10, I can see sort of triangular shape because of few bright stars at the vertices.

Box nebula - NGC 6309: Tried to locate it, but failed. Need to read more.

M14 (New): Yet another globular.

Green Nebula - NGC 6572: wasn't able to locate it.

M30: Impressive. H shape with globular hanging on top right corner. In my 32mm, 32mmx2x, 9mm it didn’t look that clear as compared to Jon's 17mm nagler last time. I guess better eyepiece helps. Saw it on Pete's 16' dob at 280x. Fabulous view. I wonder if those H shaped stars are part of this GC.

SDAA BBQ Night - Part II

Saturn Nebula - NGC 7009: Easy catch. Detailed star map would have helped. tiny, bright fuzzy object.. At 38x or 135x, can not see anzees. Pete's 16' dob showed complete details. anzee was visible with connecting lines. with OII filter nebulous ring was bright, but lost the anzee.

Failed to locate both M72 and M73. It was easy catch last time :).

Helix Nebula - NGC 7293 (New): Easy catch thru binoculars. Really big, fuzzy and faint. At 38x. Disk clearly visible, but lil bit dark in the center. Rings fills up whole eyepiece at 135x. Nothing visible at center. With Pete's 16" dob, nebulous part stands out cleanly. With OII background stars are killed and gives image of a donut. With UHC, nice bright image with background stars.

M15 (New): Yet another GC. Bright. Have a dark region on the upper right corner.

Deer Lick Group - NGC 7331 (New): In Pete's 16' dob, Nice view of bright sharp 7331. Edge on. Dark lane sort of visible. 3 tiny galaxies on top of it in right angled triangle. the one at the right angle seems brighter than other two. Seemed to be oval shaped.

Forgot all other observations. :-(