From Draco to Hercules !

[cotterless45]

Right ho festive frolickers ! Time to shake off and have an ice cold detox !

An early star as it darkened, my granddaughter (8) was eager to see some sights, what eyes ! Counted seven stars in Pleiades and spotted Mizar Alcor. Then onto M31 after explaining what it was , " there's another one there ", M101. Then some doubles in Aries, M34, M35 and the Auriga clusters. We made some resolution in M15, but mainly it was high targets to get the ep down to her height. We had a look at the bright cut out of Venus, very impressive .Ended up excitedly ,"Daddy's going to buy me a small scope next birthday ", "err tell him to see me first !"
A scoot around including Draco, before early to bed.... to wake uptake 1.30 and find the skies dark and still. The incredible yowling ,all moaning whinging cat kept me awake from a few gardens away.
Leo draws the eye straight to NGC 2903 high in the head. Very nice comparison to bright Bode's . Onto the Leo groups and Coma Berenices up to Canes Venatici and Ursa Major. Back down into the bowl of Virgo. No great sights here, most of the Messier's were amorphous blobs with little sky contrast.  
Best here being NGC 4725, NGC 4565, M64, M85, M100, M88 through to M60.
Algieba and Regulus providing some sights. M3, the dim NGC 5466, M53 (resolved) and the dim NGC 5053 provided some good views.
Spent some little time on the binaries and triples in Leo and Leo Minor. Jupiter climbed over the roof tops, quite a sizeable disc with a good array of moons. No transits, but some lovely belt details. Some very strange seeing, one moment I gave up with even wide separations , then Tegmine at 1.1" snapped into shape. It's not optics, just atmosphere. After midnight is just ace.

ε Draconis gives yellow and blue. As does 54 Leonis, 83 and tau provide a lovely double double view. Σ1374 and Σ1447 are particular favourites , very delicate and a pleasure to observe. 

Sight of the morning was the keystone of Hercules in the north east , just line up between Arcturus and Vega, hurrah ! It's still amazes me that in the midst of winter , the Summer Triangle is still on early show ,

clear skies and all the best for 2017 !

old Nick.

[mapstar]

Lovely stuff Nick. At present we have a high hazy cloud bank but I'm hoping it moves off for a session tonight 

[wookie1965]

Clear here last night and forecast for same tonight pity my mount is broke great report as usual and brilliant drawings. 

Paul 

[cloudsweeper]

Blimey Nick - M101 - I've yet to see it!  (Managed M51 however.)  Wish I had eyes (or a location) like that!

Doug.

[FenlandPaul]

Nice report as ever, Nick.  Great work by your grand-daughter spotting M101 - that's some going!!

Paul

[alan potts]

Nice report which is your trademrk, full of good stuff. I am often told I am like an 8 yo as I could see 7 stars as well, sometimes I can see more but when it is on the other side of the sky, must be the atmostphere settling down. We once stopped on top of a local mountain at about 4500 feet at 5 in the morning and I would have said anyone could have seen 7 stars from that palce but the nearest light was about 10 miles away and there was probaly like Skye is.

I continue to try and dip my toe into this glaxay hunting but I can't say I am hooked on that much, I do sort of enjoy how faint I can see, though I failed the other night to dig out NGC 2 at 14.4 mag I believe it was.

Alan

[estwing]

I'm still too full to move....glad someone is getting an eye full....clear skies!