I just wanted to share the nice night (after so much rain) that I had Wednesday evening.
A dry front passed through in the afternoon and dropped the humidity and pushed out the clouds and air pollution. I headed to a semi dark spot. A friend met me out there and viewed with me most of the night. I hung around late to finally catch a few specific things. Not only did I get to revisit many things I had already seen, I added about a dozen new items and surfed the virgo galxy cluster again. Up to six galxies in a view. Many of the items I revisted were the first time seeing with my 12.5" scope (up from 8"). Globs come to life, galaxies take on new details, neighboring faint DSO's appear, ...
The highlights of the evening are many, but the 2 big ones - I found the last 5 things I was missing on the Messier list and Omega Centauri. That glob is unbelievable. It is giant in the finder. Put it at 134x with a 14UWA and it fills the fov. What a beautiful sight.
As a sign of how good the night was, at one point very late I heard some click/clack and saw something creeping up on me. I jumped up and holler and he ran with his tail straight up. I think it was a skunk (could have been a 'coon, but we was very low to the ground) and even with the tail up - I didn't get sprayed.
Clear skies.
Ed
BTW - I just moved this to the forum I wanted to post it in, instead of the forum I accidently posted it in. Sorry for any confusion.
A dry front passed through in the afternoon and dropped the humidity and pushed out the clouds and air pollution. I headed to a semi dark spot. A friend met me out there and viewed with me most of the night. I hung around late to finally catch a few specific things. Not only did I get to revisit many things I had already seen, I added about a dozen new items and surfed the virgo galxy cluster again. Up to six galxies in a view. Many of the items I revisted were the first time seeing with my 12.5" scope (up from 8"). Globs come to life, galaxies take on new details, neighboring faint DSO's appear, ...
The highlights of the evening are many, but the 2 big ones - I found the last 5 things I was missing on the Messier list and Omega Centauri. That glob is unbelievable. It is giant in the finder. Put it at 134x with a 14UWA and it fills the fov. What a beautiful sight.
As a sign of how good the night was, at one point very late I heard some click/clack and saw something creeping up on me. I jumped up and holler and he ran with his tail straight up. I think it was a skunk (could have been a 'coon, but we was very low to the ground) and even with the tail up - I didn't get sprayed.
Clear skies.
Ed
BTW - I just moved this to the forum I wanted to post it in, instead of the forum I accidently posted it in. Sorry for any confusion.
Thanks!