Trying to see everything

[The Warthog]

I haven't done enough observing this year. This is partly because I've been busy, and partly because I've been going to bed earlier, and it's been unusually rainy this year. However, all that aside, I'm guilty of going out and looking at the same few objects over and over. I do look at the Moon and planets whenever possible, as the local skies don't allow much deep sky.

So, when I set up tonight, I was going to take a good look at Jupiter, and then call it quits. After I had done that, though, I began to think about objects that I haven't seen in a long time, or at all, and hauled out Turn Left at Orion, and decided to try seeing everything I could that was listed in the book and above the horizon.

The horizon is a bit tricky, as my back yard is surrounded by trees and houses, some of which block the horizon to 40 degrees, and I have to park near my shed to block out the worst of the local street lamps. Furthermore, between LP and haze, I can see no stars below 30 degrees altitude, even with binoculars. It's that bad.

I started on page 102, and was immediately stymied by the fact that I cannot see Hercules, as the shed is partly in the way, and the stars aren't bright enough to cut through the haze. Same with Serpens and Ophiuchus.

This brings me to the double-double in Lyra, which I am pretty familiar with, and tonight I could almost split it. I could at least see that the two doubles are at roughly right angles to each other. Next, I picked up the Ring, another familiar sight, but somewhat difficult in these skies.

Took me a while to find Albireo, as I can barely see it naked-eye, but it splits easily. M56 totally defeated me, as always. Did manage to find and split 61 Cygni, and that's a first for me. I didn't even try to spot the blinking nebula, or the Dumbell, which I have seen often. I picked up another two firsts with M71 in Sagitta, and Gamma Delphini in Delphinus. M71 was at the absolute limit of my ability to see, and only by indirect vision, but I am satisfied that I saw it.

Of course, I saw M31, but what I saw looked more like a globular cluster than a huge galaxy. I was seeing the core, and not even all of it.

I found and managed to split eta Cassiopeiae (a first) and found but couldn't really split iota Cass. I didn't bother trying the Cass. open clusters because the sky was just too hazy and awful.

May not sound like much of a night, but I had a ball making lemonade out of a lemon sky.

[jonbarr87]

Lol well glad you could make some good out of the GTA skies. You saw more in that 1 light polluted night than I have in my life lol