Shortened March session.

[cotterless45]

A balmy seven degrees C soon dropped bringing dew and some cloud cover. Just a short couple of hours, seeing wasn't the best. Started off with a view of 

M94 that bright glow in Canes Venatici. M51 showed two cores , not bad from here. Also spotted a brighter M63 "sunflower ". M3 looked lovely , just a sparkling view at x100.

Caught "La Superba" (SAO 44317) , much duller than last look , but a beautiful glowing coal.

Leo gave hardly a glimpse of galaxies, but OΣ215 did split open at around 1.4". I tried out Tegmine , really a challenge this time to get the triple. 90 Leonis ( SAO 99673) gave a stunning view of this triple at x92, it showed at lower power as well.

That chain of stars around Kochab and Pherkab , it's Draco . Worth finding 16/17 Draconis , another lovely bright triple , spot the close companion at low power.

Dodged the clouds , before they stopped play,

Careful and clear skies ! 

Nick.

[wookie1965]

Brilliant Nick forecast was clear here until 1am waiting for darkness clouds soon hung around Leo was straight in front of me at 8pm at 9pm could not see it, looking straight up I could see stars but lower down was gone.

Went out with binoculars everything was hazy really disappointed not getting out hopefully this weather will change.

M51 from home wow I have never seen that from here well done. 

[Stu1smartcookie]

Nice report , Nick . Clear from 7pm in my location ... set up time + 30 mins , including first use of a pole master ( seems a bit of a luxury tbh ) .. wind picked up , temperature dropped ... it was an uncomfortable evening,  to be honest. But , i used the time to slew to some lovely star clusters and a few doubles . I so wanted to see the sunflower but it was hidden behind my house and my proximity to the house where i set up . 

Nice to read your report .

Stu

  

[Nik271]

Thanks for the report, Nick! I will check out 90 Leo and 16/17 Dra next time I'm out. After a winter of pushing high magnifications I feel like watching some springtime galaxies and relaxing doubles at low mags where I don't have to keep cranking the RA axis all the time to keep them in view

[Nik271]

An update after an unexpected clear night (yesterday 17 March). I easily found 90 Leonis. It's a third of the way between Denebola and Zosma. The triple showed very nicely at 130x, which is the lowest magnification I had available after my Moon viewing session. Its a lovely triple, even the 10 magnitude star at arcminute away seems to be physically related because they share the same motion.

16 Dra was hiding behind a tree, something for the future.