Messing about by moonlight

[rojay]

Last night I thought I would try some deep sky, to see what's possible - whatever I could do under the full moon should be easy under just "normal" light pollution. Unfortunately, by the time I went out, there was high cloud and I could hardly see any stars with the naked eye. I managed to compare the colours of Zeta and Eta Aurigae in the same low power field, but it was too murky to do much else.

Solar system, then. Venus was bright but low, and to avoid the atmospheric dispersion that had bothered me the other night, I thought I'd have a go on monochrome. The most monochrome thing I have is an OIII filter, so in it went! The result was a nice sharp and steady image, but green of course. Some hint of brightness on one part of the limb, but not convincing.

While I was at it, I swung over to the moon, with the same setup, thinking it might help with both glare and seeing (is there any blurring from seeing refracting different wavelengths to a slightly different extent? I don't know). This was rather fun, the green moon looked like I was using some retro CRT device:

I switched to more conventional filtering  to study the moon a bit more carefully. It was interesting to see Aristarchus and surroundings now looking "high and dry" away from the terminator unlike the other day, rather as if the tide had gone out in the meantime. Comparing Grimaldi, Hevelius and Cavalerius showed a progression in depth and definition of the walls, and presumably age. I also observed the limb opposite the terminator, pretty sure I was some deviation from a perfectly circular outline. 

Next was Mars, very small, and I couldn't make out any detail. The sky was looking a bit less murky by then, so I tried the original deep-sky plan: starting from Mars, I used Sky Safari coordinates with my azimuth circle and inclinometer to pan across to nearby M35. I landed straight on it, and had a good view with the 16mm Nirvana. Next I attempted M37 which was more challenging. Technology helped again: as well as supplying the coordinates, Sky safari let me compare the flipped display with what I was seeing through the eyepiece. Knowing I was targeting the right place, I could patiently look until I saw the faint stars of the cluster. Increasing the magnification (10mm ortho) darkened the sky, helping with contrast. 

But the personal highlight of the evening was when I look out a folding chair rather than the stool I usually use, and on opening it up, found the hat that I'd lost months ago!

Thank you for getting this far with my ramblings!