Turn Left at Orion, quite literally!

[Swithin StCleeve]

Work commitments in the morning mean this night-time write up of observation notes will be brisk and mostly ramble-free, which is surely a blessing for the reader!
Two weeks ago I had a decent binocular session at the society observatory, which I regretfully didn’t write up my notes on-line. This followed a successful session with my Dob the same week, (which was my last observation report on here).
Anyway, during my bino session two weeks ago I used the society’s newly donated Orion Optics binos (picture above) and my own Opticrom 10x50’s . I catalogued a few open clusters I’d not seen before, all mostly in the rather shy constellation of Monoceros, and all to the left of the now westward-setting constellation of Orion, (hence the post title).
The ‘new to me’ open clusters I noted during my bino session were:
NGC2186
NGC2244
NGC2236
NGC2251
NGC2264
All of them quite easy to find under a crisp sky with 10x50 bins and patience. I noted NGC2244 and particularly NGC2264 were bright, relatively large and ‘Messier-like’. Well worth re-visiting with the 10” mirror, and at last I had chance tonight.
But first, after I arrived around 7.30, and set the dob up (thirty seconds tops, with one minute added to align the telrad… cheers!) ,and with astronomical darkness an hour away, I visited some easy Messier objects and other ‘greatest hits’. First M42, which I didn’t spend too much time on. Then M78, the reflection nebula above, (hello ghostly face thing!). I swung round to see the pleasingly bright and contrasty double cluster in Perseus, and naively tried to find some galaxies in Ursa Major  when it was heading towards the Wolverhampton sky glow. Why do I bother?
A quite faint Crab Nebula told me the seeing wasn’t especially great tonight, but M35 was really pleasing, and I followed the trail of stars to NGC5128.
Near the Beehive (M44) is a galaxy NGC 2672, which (unsurprisingly) eluded me tonight, but it’s on my hit list for our society observation weekend next weekend. I don’t know the mag of this galaxy, I suppose I could google.
The Beehive was a faint naked eye object tonight, so the seeing definitely wasn’t so good. However, I did get a lovely view of M67, the irregular open cluster underneath M44. This was quite a treat tonight, (I think I was using a 28mm eyepiece tonight).
And so to NGC2264, also known as the Xmas tree cluster I see. It’s number 38 in James O’Meara’s Secret Deep list. Quite easy to find with the dob by star-hopping, and a very pretty sight in the eyepiece, with one bright star I assume isn’t related to the cluster shining twice as bright and gold to my eyes tonight. The actual cluster is only 2,500 light years away.
Underneath, and still in Monoceros, is 2244, designated Caldwell 50 by the great monocled man himself. Looking at diagrams and pictures of it here in my warm flat now, I can see that the cluster I observed tonight was just the brighter stars, as I noted the stars were ‘few and uniform’. I suppose I could file under ‘unmistakable but unremarkable’ tonight. O’Meara talks about nebulosity in both NGC2264 and NGC2244, but seven miles from the city, I wasn’t rewarded with cosmic plumes tonight, and I didn’t expect to be. I also expect these targets are rather more well known for the astro-photographers than observers. 
It got cold, I was hungry and constantly reminded that the seeing wasn’t great. I felt tonight was successful mostly in my visiting a little-visited constellation (Monoceros), and giving me a few ideas of things to visit next weekend under the Shropshire dark sky at our society’s first observation weekend of 2022. Which is next weekend.
I haven't looked at the forecast, I daren't! 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Swithin StCleeve
Repentance

[RobinH]

Great report.

See you next weekend.