My personal best night ever!

[Ccolvin968]

So this was my first real night out observing, not in the books or just checking out the moon. I Observed Venus at almost half full phase! Or what seemed to be half full. I'm still studying how Venus works and it's phases. I hopped around Caph, Ruchbah, Tsih, and Shedir as part of the constellation Cassiopeia. I also managed to add two more Messier objects to my list of seen. M-103 open cluster though faint, brighter stars still visible, and M-31. No real details could be distinguished, but small cigar like shape and bright bluefish yellow color seen. I also checked out NGC 457 (open cluster). Phi-1 Cassiopeaie (mag 5)and Phi-2 Cassiopeaie (mag 7) being the most obvious and faint other magnitude were visible throughout the night. I also Observed NGC281. At magnitude 7.3, much too faint to pull any details from the nebula. It was obviously a nebula, because it looked like a cloudy gray spot in my scope I couldn't focus on. I was also startled by a satellite flying through Cassiopeia along with a few other stray meteors. I'm probably gonna get back out there for a little bit and check out the moon tonight. The scope I have is a Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ. I bought some extra eyepieces for it and am very happy I did. Sure, it's no huge special scope, but I'm happy with it so far. I'll just be even more excited when I have a bigger better scope! Clear skies!

[Ccolvin968]

Mods, please delete/lock this post. Accidentally made a double post. Thank you.

[Skylook123]

Congratulations on beginning your journey.  Soon Orion will be available for you to wander around, and Cassiopeia has many, many wonders to explore as well.  You found NGC457 - did the Owl spread his wings for you?  With Halloween coming up, that is always a treat for the trick-or-treaters coming by the house.  I position the diagonal on the scope so that the image is upside down, and call it The Bat in consideration of the special night.

Now that your are getting out under the stars, don't ignore overhead.  The Summer Triangle has a wealth of objects to pause upon and observe.  As you visit the delightful sights, you will find that while your aperture is not the largest, it will provide deliciously wide fields of view not available to those of us with longer focal lengths.  With my 10" f/10 SCT and 18" f/5 truss dob, I find I miss the context of the objects I see.  Sometimes I use a 90mm refractor just to get "the rest of the story."  As you gain experience with your 127, if you study the views you have available, you'll grow from "looking" to "seeing", and the astronomy will come alive.  If your sky is dark enough, you will see Aquila The Eagle flying in the opposite direction of Cygnus The Swan; there is an air traffic control problem in the Summer Triangle.  Not to worry - Zeus has sent Aquila on the mission of getting messages to the other gods for the duties the next day, so Cygnus will yield the right of way to The Eagle.

The adventure awaits!  Welcome to the cosmos.

[andrew63]

Some nice things you observed there.  It's a lovely rich area for clusters  -  if not already seen - look for the 'double cluster' on the border with Perseus - it bright and one of the gems of the sky.  If your up after midnight Jupiter will be great sight also. Hope you enjoy the new scope.

andrew

[Andy_E]

Lovely report. You know this hobby is funny, you'll remember those odd 'great nights' for years. Try taking a few brief notes after each observing session... it's a great thing to look back on during those extended (and all too frequent!) cloudy spells. You'll be amazed how even the briefest of notes can take you right back to your observing session. I personally really regret not doing this from the start, well worth the 2-3 minutes of effort!

Clear skies and here's to the next one!

[mjpfc]

I use "day-to-page" diaries each year, and scribble notes and a few doodles to give an impression of what I saw.

got them going back a couple of decades, and as I also jot in weather each day I have ended up with a set of

annual met records as well.

As you say andy, well worth a couple of minutes to jot down your obs,

Mick

[kirkster501]

Great stuff.  Sounds like you had a great time  I never tire of looking at stuff from the scope and the more you observe the more you learn to see.  Sounds crazy but its true, you have to train your eyes.  A master observer like Patrick Moore and others on here can see more from a tiddler scope than I can from a 12" Dob.  Its a journey that never ends.  Enjoy  the road ahead!!!!