Pondus

From that location in July, you wont be able to (naked eye) see more than the summer triangle and Arcturus I`m afraid. And none of the big dipper stars.

Heres a Nice list of double stars: Top 200 most beautiful double stars Open clusters: - Melotte 111, Coma star cluster, is a Nice Collection of stars spread over 7 degrees, best in binoculars, but I do find this area quite beautiful in my 130 Heritage also. - IC 4665 the summer beehive is also very Nice open cluster, well Worth a look Rune

Another member of SGL (sorry, I cant rembember who) provided us With this link : lens caps

Unless these images arent from the Stellina at all ...

On their "captured by Stellina" image gallery esp. Orion Nebula, theres clearly diffraction spikes on the stars?

I find this and eVscope (discussed in an earlier thread) quite fascinating. Reviews of these Products will be very interesting

I really like those Auriga clusters. M38 has an interesting faint companion in the same fov (lowish Powers), the small open cluster NGC1907.

Hello and welcome from me too, located in Norway . Rune

I`m not sure if this really answers Your question, but since you are US based why dont try out : http://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/ Pick out the chart-location nearest to you, there must be 100+ in Colorado alone, and check if the transparency forecast is reliable? Rune

https://starizona.com/acb/basics/equip_optics101_coma.aspx http://www.telescope-optics.net/coma.htm http://www.scopecity.com/optics-course-0028.cfm?pn=ABERRATIONS Some links (abberations Scopes and eyepieces) to sites that has been helpful to me, when trying to understand what the experts talk about, and what to look for .

Soo, lets hope this fellow never reads this thread then. It wasnt really very discreet, was it? Rune

The big tracking test With a manual dob, is trying to keep up With Mars galloping across the sky, while trying to absorb the views

Some Nice Excel work there. Once all those galaxies were considered to be nebulas within the milky way . I`m not quite sure how this structure will help me organising data (personal honest opinion ), to me its more of a fun fact overview. As of Your conclusions : I think Your findings are more suitable for observeres living far more South than those of us living in the Northern part of Europe: For me May, June and first 2/3 of August is only decent for planets and some doubles. The 'night' sky is Incredible Bright. In general open clusters (not referring to NGC OC`s only) are quite evenly spread along the galactic equator so any season (Sep-Apr) is a good OC season. For me anyways. Just my thoughts. But you certainly have motivated me to pick up Excel as an astronomy tool again, so thank you for posting . Regards Rune

Hello Bob and welcome from me too, located in Norway . Rune

Nice late nite read . There are some Nice clusters coming up these spring: Messier 5 (so far my fave globular using 8"), and the summer beehive. It will be interesting to hear Your view on them With Your New Scope . Rune