A short 30 minutes

[george7378]

My new scope makes me want to report every little thing I see! Although I only had about 1/2 an hour this evening, and the clouds were even intermittent (I was forced to go in by spots of rain) I saw some beatiful sights from the dark skies at home.

The first object I saw was M31, and it looked amazing even through the 8X50 finder! When I got the 25mm EP on it, I could see both satellite galaxies, and lots of faint nebulosity surrounding the core oval. My observation of a dark dust lane from a more light-polluted area where I made my first observing report was confirmed - I could see it hugging the nebulosity even without dark adaptation time and proper averted vision! I think I may also have spotted a second following a similar path below it through the fainter nebulosity - I will enjoy studying the galaxy to investigate further.

I also saw Io's shadow close to the edge of Jupiter, and although the planet was in and out of cloud and I didn't really have time to properly study it, I saw some nice festoons on the NEB's perimeter and both polar hoods looked great. This planet is really coming alove with the new scope's optics.

Not much was viewed, but I still loved picking out some familiar objects in a new light.