A lot of work for very little satisfaction

[The Warthog]

Last night promised to be clear, so I set up my newt a little after sunset, while the sky was still blue and stars hadn't appeared yet. I found Jupiter in the finder, even though it wasn't visible to my eye, and lined up the finders before I went back inside to wait for darkness. Jupiter was small and a bit wiggly, but I could see bands on it, and three of the moons, so one was probably lurking behind the planet.

I was primarily interested in looking for M31, but it appeared to be behind my neighbour's tree, which naturally is the highest obstruction around me. The skies aren't good at present, so I had a little difficulty identifying the Square of Pegasus, but I figured it out after a while. While I waited for M31 to clear the tree, I looked around for some NGCs in Cassiopeia, without a lot of success. Again, the skies are very LP and opaque at present. I found myself looking at some unimpressive bunches of stars where the clusters were supposed to be. I've had better luck with them in better skies. I even saw the double-double, and it wasn't nearly what it was when I saw it at Manitoulin Island.

Couldn't pull up the Ring, either. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. I was actually using a dim blue flashlight to read Nightwatch, because the amount of ambient light was almost enough for me to read by, anyway. (I can no longer shoot out the streetlamp across the street, even though I've put new batteries in the laser pointer.)

When I finally sorted out where M31 was supposed to be, I put myself in the general area and looked around with the 7x50 finder. I realized that I had been identifying Alpha Andromedae correctly when I stood back and looked at the sky, but when I bent over the telescope and looked through the red-dot finder I was lining up on the next star down. When I figured that out, I put the red dot on approximately the right place, and looked through the 7x50 finer. Finally located a dim smudge, and moved it to the centre of the crosshairs. In the scope at 32x it was hardly there, but it was defininitely M31. When I saw it in dark skies in August, it was bright, and I could clearly see M110 beside it. Tonight all I could manage was the core of the galaxy. It was pretty unimpressive. I'm beginning to wonder if goto would solve my problem of having trouble finding the refereence stars to locate an object. If my system can find it, and I still can't see it, the goto won't do me much good.

Anyway, after my excitement with M31, I packed up and came inside. I thought I might try for some globs, but I didn't thnk it would be worth the effort. I had been out for an hour and a quarter, in mild, slightly breezy weather, and it was time for the eleven o'clock news. The newscast was really boring, too.

Like I said, a lot for a little...

[GordonCopestake]

I feel your pain WH, the last week or 2 have been the same for me but with M13. Street lights and trees conspire against me.