Venus and the shadow on M35

[Owmuchonomy]

Now then, like a lot of folks clear skies have been at a premium up here.  According to my handset, when I went out last night under a clear patch it was exactly 2 weeks since I fired up the mount.  'Clear Outside' showed overcast but the brand new iOS Met Office app showed 2 hours of clear from 7pm to 9pm.  Well it was sort of clear but a little milky and I am desperate to get some eye miles in on the ED120 I was lucky enough to 'acquire'.  So first I moved to Venus 'humming' through the contrails.  I was astounded on the quality of the view.  Despite the lack of transparency the seeing was remarkable.  Venus is now showing an excellent crescent and for the first time ever in my memory there was no discernible wobbling of or aberrations in the bright image.  I swear I could see some patchy features on the cloud tops but I'm not going to say definitely.  

After a while I looked further afield and the only clear patch was around Gemini so I moved to my favourite, M35 using the 2" ES 82' 24mm.  Fine crystals popped out everywhere but then I thought my time was up as I spotted haze to the W of the field of view or was it a mark on the glass?  I slewed slightly but no, it was something in the sky so I put it in the centre of view.  It looked like a malformed globular cluster and sure enough tons of small discrete stars were there.  Now you experienced observers know what it is but I had to look it up and for me that's the fun.  I had no idea I was looking at NGC 2158 and what a golden glow it was explained by its relative old age compare to M35, 10x older in fact.

That's one up for the ED120 over the SCT 9.25", maybe.

Then the milky sky turned to yoghurt and my night was done but I enjoyed the hunt.

[Astro Imp]

Nice report and good for you taking the opportunity to get some eye time.

[John]

Nice report !

I always look out for NGC 2158 when I'm observing M35. I like picking out these "less well known but nonetheless interesting neighbour" type objects