Dragonfly cluster first,

[hippie]

With the skies so bright at the moment with the moon up I turned the scope West NW, Came across the Dragonfly cluster in Cassiopela, for the first time, What a wonderful little cluster it turned out to be, Got good views with the 13mm nagler lens using the 6" F5 refractor scope  , 

M42, Wasn't to good with the moon being so bright last night & even Jupiter was hard to get any fine detail out of again due to the moons brightness, Finished of with Mars but again I couldn't seem to get any detail out of the little red wonder!, Think I'll take the 10" Dob out next time see if I can squeeze any detail out with that ,

Not a bad night all in all even though the moon was so bright last night!. It was good to get out into the forest with out torrents of water under my feet trying to wash us away this time & mild also with no wind yeaaaah!  .

Ian.

  

[Qualia]

Lovely report, Hippie and it sounds to me you had a good night. Rather than the Moon's brightness, I reckon the seeing just wasn't so great. In my own experience, apart from the scattered glare from the Moon which can sometimes invade wider field eyepieces, I'm not totally convinced the Moon's brightness in itself actually washes out planetary detail. I agree, though, that Mars is a really tricky beast to crack and it has only ever been with the 10" that I have been able to capture significant detail. Anyway, thanks for the write up and I look forward to a few more