At work with my binos

[al55]

My first ever report, still new and learning:

Been on nights at work and have had my new Celestron 15 x 70 there waiting and last night was finally rewarded with clear skies.

Fortunate to have work which comes in batches and allows me little windows of opportunity of 20 to 30 mins to have a quick look at the sky.

Early on picked out M31, which i can find now with no problem, it covered the biggest area i think ive seen in my short time observing.

Jupiter was another easy target, watched this throughout the night, seeing the moons alternate between 3 and 4 and moving from 9 o clock position to 11 o clock. Used Stellarium this morning to track what i was seeing with Jupiter and its moons and suprised how accurate i was.

Cassiopea always worth a look and always find it amazing how many stars are up there, Pleiades once again easy to pick out and always brilliant.

Had a good look at the moon before it sunk away, this looked stunning before sinking down below a bunker at work.

Had at quick look at Auriga and could pick out a star cluster or two, but came back to this later, about 3 in the morning.

Got round the darkest part of the plant at 3 in the morning to view Auriga and Orion. Was just amazed now how easy i could pick out the star clusters in Auriga with the naked eye and even better with the binos, only downside to this is i'm not sure which ones were which, but sure that the biggest ones must have been M36,37 or 38.

Orion M42 looked like 4 stars (though mainly 3) surrounded by a grey mist, cant wait to get my scope on this later in the year.

So a good night at work, highlight for me was seeing all the clusters in Auriga, must admit to not taking much notice of this before, but still learning.