Observing from US in Upstate South Carolina. March

[TheG57]

Feb 27th 2011 was a good night at Bobby Brown State Recreational Area, in GA US. Joplin and I arrived around 8:00pm with my 11" Celestron SCT and Joplin's 25 x 100 binoculars. We got set up quickly and observed for a little over 4 hours. Objects viewed included M46, M47, M33 Rosette, Flame Nebula, Double Cluster M42 (6 stars in the trapezium easy, seeing stable), NGC 2903, Hubble's Variable Nebula, NGC 1535, NGC 3115, M79, NGC 2467, NGC 3242, NGC 3151, NGC 2392, NGC 2371, M1, NGC 2467, NGC 2440, M95, 96, 105, 65, 66, NGC 3344, NGC 3628, NGC 2403, M81, M82, NGC 4725, NGC 4656, NGC 4565, NGC 4490, NGC 4485, NGC 4244, M63, M104, M3, M51, M101, NGC 4038, M97, M108 and a few others I forgot to note. The seeing conditions were excellent and the transparency was average for the site. We checked out Saturn at about 32 deg. altitude before packing up and it wasn't great - too low and the seeing had deteriorated a bit. Limiting magnitude around the top of the big dipper was 6.4-6.5 . We got dew out, Humidity was 91% and it was almost 0000hrs. So we called it and got out of there around 0030hrs...

Side Note: NGC 3151 is a 15 mag galaxy, that was the highlight of the night. Seeing conditions we're great in that part of the sky. Surprised the hell out of me. Since my scope limit is around 14mag. We actualy went to it by mistake, Joplin put in the wrong number. Which was suppose to be 3115, nice mistake. We did try for the Horse Head. Still couldn't see it with and without HB filter. That part of the sky didn't like us looking at it. Saw a bunch of small fast meteors in and around ursa major about 8-10 of them...

[m_j_lyons]

Wow, one heck of a good night. Looking forward to seeing more posts like this.

Sent from my HTC Magic using Tapatalk

[DarkerSky]

What an awesomely dark sky you have there. LM at 6.4/6.5 is something I could get jealous of! Picking out a mag 15 gx is pretty special. Well done

[brantuk]

Dunno how you fit so much into just 4hrs - sounds like a teriffic night