I was in bed reading Seeing In the Dark by Timothy Ferris, when I decided to take a look out the window. It was cloudy all day and during the night. That is, until now... it's about 2:00 AM EST and I can see a few stars shimmering through the window. I instantly got up and went downstairs and checked how things looked outside. Mars, shining so brightly in the south... and Cassiopea and Andromeda... Pegasus, Perseus, Cygnus, Lyra... all shining brightly. But however, the moon was out too! Low in the horizion a cresent moon lighting the Eastern Horizon and blocking M31 and the Double Cluster from reaching naked eye visiblity. I came back in and checked what features are currently visible on Mars. Not too many... I can only expect to see a few dark mares and the ice cap tonight... how I wish for Syrtis Major.
Nevertheless, I take out the 254mm Dob and point it towards the bright beacon of light in the south... Mars. Using the 25mm Sirius Plössl giving 48x magnification Mars was quite small and not much detail besides the Ice Cap was visible. So I quickly insert the 4mm which yields 300x Magnification. First thing noted was how much larger the apparent disc size of the planet is! It is even bigger than when I saw it in July! The polar ice cap standing out and right beneath it some obvious Mare markings. But time to move on... I decide to try again with M31.
This time M31 showed up fairly nicely in the finderscope... but it still wasn't at Naked eye visibility. Upon first observation the overall shape of the galaxy was very prominent, but still lacking the dust bands! M32 was brightly visible off the the left of the galaxy in the same Field of View. I tried using averted vision and it seemed that I could pick out more shape to the galaxy... and maybe some of the dust bands. I really cannot wait until the Moon is gone and M31 is visible to the naked eye. I'm sure then that it will be much more spectacular. But it is still a nice view and I enjoy viewing both M31 and M32 in the same field of view. M31 is so much larger than M32.
Next up is NGC 884 and NGC 869 the Double Cluster. In the Finder scope it was quite unimpressive. But however through the scope it was amazing. Although fairly low in the horizon and in the Moon glow and Light Pollution. The Double Cluster showed itself wonderfully. I inspected each cluster with the 10mm Sirius Plössl. This is one of the most amazing Deep Sky Objects and in my opinion, the best of Open Clusters. The closeness of these two Clusters crams so many stars into the same field of view it is breath taking. After finishing viewing NGC 884 and NGC 869 I take one more look around the sky and decide to pack up and bring everything in so I can get some well deserved sleep. A great session tonight, especially since it has been cloudy or Partly Cloudy every night this month.
