Another clear night gave me the opportunity to get out with my scope to my local dark (ish) site in some nearby woods. I've got packing the car, unloading and setting up pretty organised now...so its down with the blanket - to protect my knees and make sure I don't lose anything before getting the scope out and leaving it to cool. The 200P is pretty manageable and the dob mount is a doddle to set up - It can be ready within a few minutes of unpacking it...get it on level ground...drop the scope into its mount, attach the Telrad and do a quick alignment check of finderscope and Telrad and I'm good to go...easy-peasy!

Since my last observing session i've invested in a new eyepiece so I'm itching to give it a try...a Celestron Omni 32mm Plossl which is a real beast in size compared to the 25mm which came with my scope...I'm hoping it'll give brighter wider field views than the basic EP i've been using to date!

Looking round with the naked eye and binoculars while I wait for my eyes to dark adapt is a habit I've disciplined myself to - hopefully it'll mean that not only am I ready to observe once I get to my scope...but it'll help me to become more familiar with the constellations and the night sky...which can only help a beginner like me!

Dominating the western sky is Venus low and extremely bright - impossible to mistake for anything else! With a decent southern horizon and clear skies I'm able to get a first look at the southern section of Canis Major, the so-called "hindquarters" a crucifix pattern of bright naked eye stars centred around Delta CMa or Wezen. Mars is beginning to rise in the East just below Leo and I can glimpse a faint tiny blur that is M44 Praesepe in the centre of Cancer...which occupies the large barren area between Gemini and Leo.

Eager to turn my new eyepiece to something spectacular M45 The Pleiades was my first target - they looked brilliant in the 32mm; the bright naked eye stars set amidst a dazzling spread of fainter stars - all a uniform shiny blue-white, quite simply overwhelming! Unfortunately despite letting my eye wander and concentrating on the region around Merope there were no hints of faint nebulosity - quite what i've got to do to see this famous reflection nebula is beyond me! Looking up from the eyepiece for some reason the sky seems quite bright even though it looks very clear...so maybe some moisture in the air is brightening the skyglow and reducing contrast? Don't know if that's true...but it sounds good doesn't it!!!

I observed all three open clusters in Auriga - M36, M37 and M38 - in my scope M37 is definitely the most impressive; its stars range in brightness down to a barely visible background like a sprinkling of icing sugar - M36 is smaller and containers fewer but individually brighter and well resolved stars.

M1 The Crab Nebula was easily found tonight...I think I'm starting to get the hang of this object! I've worked out the starhop in my mind (M1 is just north of the equilateral triangle of stars containing Zeta Taurus) looking like a small fuzzy oblong in the 32mm EP - and as a big lozenge of grey fluff in the 10mm.

It was as nice to observe M42 and M43 in Orion as ever. Whether it was the sky or the new EP it looked clearer and brighter than usual, M43 seemed more obvious and separate wrapped around a single faint star. All four stars of The Trapezium visible in the 10mm EP but still no sign of E or F!

Sigma Orion as impressive as ever below Alnitak in Orion's belt: All four components visible including the faint and close companion C (c10mag) nestling in the glare of the primary A.

M78 popped out nicely! It appears as a comet-like triangular wisp of nebulosity - there was no sign of any further nebulosity associated with Alnitak though.

Visually I find Monoceros a really obscure constellation - only Beta and Gamma are obvious to me naked eye stars situated midway along a line from Orion's Belt to Sirius. One of the two; Beta Monoceros is a beautiful multiple star, last time I was able tio view it as a triple, but for some reason tonight I was unable to split it completely and had to content myself with viewing A & B/C as a bright attractive double star in my 10mm EP.

It isn't hard to find Castor - which split easily as a bright and obvious double...I still forgot to check for a fainter more distant third companion - doh!

After finding it easily from my light polluted back garden on my last session I was suprised not to be able to pick up NGC2392 The Eskimo Nebula. Previously it was obvious - so we'll put this down to observer error/impatience...next time I'll persevere with the 10mm EP!

I'd been looking forward to viewing M35 with my new 32mm EP and it didn't disappoint! It was as spectacular ever and looked perfect in the brighter, wider field of view. Well resolved bright stars against a background of lots and lots of fainter stars fading almost to the invisibility...its definitely my favourite Open Cluster!

An Open Cluster I'd not seen before in my telescope was M41 in Canis Major - previously only seen in binoculars! Its easy to find the southern point of a triangle made with Sirius and Mirzam - obvious in the finderscope and an attractive cluster of nicely resolved stars.

After an unsuccessful attempt on my last observing session - I returned to M50 in Monoceros, it was extremely difficult to find in an area sparsely populated with naked eye guide stars, but once located partway between Sirius and Procyon it was obvious. Not particularly rich - a loose scattering of white stars.

Finally to look for some Open Clusters in Puppis - not even a constellation i've noticed before! M46 and M47 easier to star hop too from the bright stars in Canis Major - along a line drawn from Sirius and Muliphen - not easy to pick up as not immediately obvious in the finderscope and in a "clumpy" area of the milky way - so identification was tricky! For such a close pair of clusters they were completely different in character M46 fainter but larger richer and with a grainy nebulous appearance, whereas M47 was merely a sparse scattering of bright stars.

That brought an end to another interesting observing session in which i was lucky to find a number of new Messier Objects and return to some old favourites! Roll on the next clear night...this Astronomy lark can be addictive!