Total eclipse of the heart (I mean partial eclipse of the sun lol)

Two astronomical extravaganzas in one weekend, how much more can one take! Firstly it was Omega Centauri and now a partial eclipse right in my own front lawn. This was supposed to be an annular eclipse, meaning that the moon is too far to fully obscure the entire disc of the sun, resulting in a ring of fire, rather than a total solar eclipse. However this was only viewable from the northernmost part of CA. From our location in Los Angeles, 86% of the sun would be covered by the moon. According to reports, LA has not had the moon take such a large bite out of the sun in a long time, with the last being an annular eclipse in 1992, that was highly anticipated but ultimately got washed out by clouds. To prepare for the eclipse, I ordered some eclipse shades off amazon.com and was all ready to pony out some cash to NorCal based Orion Telescopes and Binoculars for some Baader mylar filters for my C6. Alas that was not to be as they did not have those filters in stock. I could not justify buying glass solar filters as I don't think I will be using them frequently enough. The mylar ones are good and a tad cheaper! Will have to wait and see if I will eventually get those since they won't be shipping till well after the June 5th transit of Venus.

We were out for the day in Irvine visiting Pretend City (which incidentally is next to Meade Instruments lol) and then getting some groceries. Did not get home till 5pm. Good thing the eclipse started about 5.43pm, with the moon slowly starting to "nibble" away at the sun's disc. I tried shooting the eclipse through my wife's Kodak point and shoot and my eclipse shades without any success. Desperate, I cobbled together my 10x50 binoculars, two pieces of cardboard and my Paragon HD tripod to do solar projection. That too did not work out as well as I had hoped as the image formed was way too small. After fiddling around, I got my Kodak Z990 to take semi decent (albeit shaky) shots of the eclipse. Realizing that the only way I was going to get decent shots was to use the video capture/ photo capture mode, I placed the camera on my Orion Paragon tripod and shot the eclipse through eclipse shades. That was until the marine layer and clouds rolled in and create a natural filter. The end product was quite spectacular, at the peak of the eclipse at 6.38pm.The photos I got were pretty spiffy! Here are some.......

So what's up next....fortunately there will be a Transit of Venus in a couple of weeks time (June the 5th to be precise). This is when the shadow of Venus can be see traversing the disc of the sun! I have seen such a transit before from back home in Malaysia. I got good pictures of this using the solar projection method with my Celestron Cometron CO40. Wish I had my firstscope here.

Night of the Omega

I have been waiting to head back to Solstice Canyon Park in Malibu ever since the last trip there. The main reasons have been to try and see some old southern sky friends such as the good old globby Omega Centauri and radio source/hamburger galaxy NGC 5128 Centaurus A. Got the chance to catch them last Friday night. Terry also happened to be back from his European trip and was itching to try out his Bushnell Ares truss dob on his Orion VersaGo mount. So away we went.

The first stop of the night was of course the above mentioned. Terry got there earlier than I did so he got the first shot at it. We were observing from a small elevated spot inside the park (not my usual next to the car spot).  We both spotted Omega in our scopes (I had with me my Celestron/Vixen C6 6" f/5 on Vixen PortaMount...this setup is much lighter than the C6 on EQ/alt-az mount so it might become my "grab and go" Malibu scope). It looked like a pale ghost of its glory from way up north! Through both our scopes, Omega was barely resolved and appeared faint even. In fact Omega did not look much better than the views I got from back home in my light polluted skies in Malaysia! I guess being this far down, we had to contend with the marine layer and maybe some low level wispy clouds. Best views were at low to intermediate power. While in the region, we also took a sneak peek at Centaurus A, NGC 5128. It was visible, but there was no trace of its dark dust lane. This is so prominent, even in the C6 from southern skies. Oh well at least I can say that I have seen it from way up here in Malibu!

I then went through the "usual suspects", M83 (Hydra), M104 (Sombrero-Corvus), M65/66 (the galaxy pair seemed brighter tonight for some strange reason!), M95/96 (Leo), M94, M81/82 (Ursa Major-same as M65/66, appearing a little brighter), M101 (Ursa Major-looked better tonight in the C6), NGC 4565, M64 (Black Eye Galaxy), M53 (Coma Berenices), the Virgo-Coma Cluster and looked at a few objects that I had previously missed or forgot to look at, such as M63 (Sunflower galaxy) and M106 in Canes Venatici (both bright with some mottling visible in M63); the Corvus Planetary NGC 4361 (nice with the NPB filter in place); NGC 2903 in Leo (another bright galaxy) and NGC 6543 (Cat's Eye Nebula). After looking at M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra and NGC 6302, the bug nebula in Scorpius later in the night, I was reminded of why I like looking at planetaries. They are just so varied and wonderful, plus they have a high enough surface brightness to render good views at high powers.

Finished off the night with some good old fashion southern sky viewing, perusing the rich starfields close to the heart of our home galaxy. Starting with M4 (nice bar of stars resolved), M80 in Scorpius and then moving onto M8 and M20, the Lagoon and Trifid nebula, onto M17, the swan nebula and finally M16, the eagle nebula. All looked fantabulous with the NPB filter in place with heaps of nebulosity, swirls and dark lanes. Oh and yes did also look at M13. The skies were kinda moist and did not support high magnification. My scope maxed out at 125x with the 6mm TV Radian, with the stars looking blobby. You can't win all the time.......till my next trip there.....

Malibu galaxies on two seperate occasions with two different scopes...niceee

I think I am going to be going to Solstice Canyon Park at Malibu more frequently from now on. I had a chance to go on two separate occasions when the moon was new and out of the way and got heaps of observing done. The site, while not the best dark sky site, offers skies that are dark enough for serious galaxy observation and hunting. The very fact that it is only half an hours drive from where I live makes it a whole lot more accessible than say Mount Pinos. Heck I can even go for in prompto observation sessions during the week! Another plus is that I can easily drive to a nearby ocean site that has clear views of the southern horizon (and therefore I can have access to objects that are otherwise invisible from Pinos). Also it does not get nearly as cold as Pinos (which is pretty much covered in snow for half of the year!). My only gripe with the site is that I cannot drive my car into the park, which pretty much limits which scope I can use. I currently park just outside the barricade that leads into the park and setup my scope there. My weapon of choice is usually my Orion SkyScanner on an Orion HD2F tripod. However my Celestron/Vixen C6 on my newly acquired Vixen PortaMount is just as light and portable, plus it shows more detail in objects (read on to find out), so that setup might get more use in the near future.

Anyways onto the observing sessions. The last time I was there, on a Saturday night, I had with me my C6 on PortaMount configuration, as well as my Celestron Firstscope micro dob (which I used on the bonnet of my car to look at objects which were not that high up in the sky and were skirting the treeline). The first stop, just like on Thursday was M81 and M82. Both galaxies looked better in the C6 (of course with the added aperture advantage) than in the SkyScanner. The main advantage I found using a larger aperture was that I could  increase the magnification to ferret out minute details such as mottling in the main body of the galaxy, etc etc. This was the same for M104, the Sombrero Galaxy in Corvus, as was M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici. M104 did not show its dark dust lane or its characteristic somebrero shape in the SkyScanner. This was very evident using the 6mm Radian in the C6. Also I though I could make out the bridge connecting M51 with its companion galaxy, and more of its spiral arms were visible around the nucleus. Other galaxies that showed substantially more detail in the larger scope included M64, the black eye galaxy, NGC 4565 in Coma Berenices (its edge on visage much easier to discern), and M94 in Canes Venatici. All these galaxies benefited from added magnification. The Leo galaxies M65/66/NGC 3628 and M95/96 and M105/NGC 3384/NGC 3389 looked good in both scopes, but again the C6 won out with its greater aperture. I then spent some time just wondering around the Virgo-Coma cluster. This is a superb field to spend some time just surfing from galaxy to galaxy! M83 in Hydra was a disappointment as only the core of the galaxy was visible, even with the C6. I guess this galaxy is southern object and it was not very high in the sky, hence the washed out views. Still better to be able to see it than not at all! The only galaxy that appeared better in the SkyScanner was M101, for some strange reason (go figure). One thing to note though is how spoilt I have become with me using my 10" dob extensively back in Australia. Many of the galaxies looked foreign and even difficult to spot in my smaller scopes. Will have to get used to this until we get a car large enough to transport my 10" dob. Our current Corolla sedan, with the baby seat installed is just not convenient for throw in the back seat observing.

Back to the observing report. As the night progressed, more of the summer constellation started to climb higher into the sky. I got fantastic views of M13, northern hemisphere's best glob (pales in comparison to Omega Centauri and 47 Tuc still...even M22, the crackerjack cluster in Sagittarius). Some of its outer stars showed up in the SkyScanner, although the cluster was cracked wide open with the C6. I noted that the views were very nice even in the Celestron Firstscope! M4 in Scorpius showed its bar of stars in all three scopes, with the brightest views coming from the C6 at high mag. M80 was unresolved in all three scopes. I finished off both nights with M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra. This still remains my fave planetary nebula as its ghostly annulus is apparent even in the smallest scopes. The ring shape is obvious even in the Celestron Firstscope! Will have to try and image this the next time I am at Malibu!

Do galaxies and light pollution mix....I like to think so! Oh yeah and I have a Porta mount!

Bear with me while I go on one of my usual rants. I figure better to have rants than to not have anything to write about at all :) Seeing how I just received my new second hand Vixen Porta mount, I was itching to try out my new bigger "grab and go" setup for home and for my jaunts to semi dark/ dark skies. My Celestron/Vixen C6 has been needing a new mount for a while now. I used to have it mounted on my EQ3-2 mount, functioning in alt-az mode. This setup has served me well and has seen so many trips to my dark sky site back in Brisbane, Australia, as well as to Mount Pinos in SoCal.

Lately the old workhorse (I got the mount with the scope way back in 2001, so the mount is about 11 years old now! It has been through so many configurations, the latest being the addition of wooden legs to the whole shebang to get rid of vibrations) has been slipping up, as in gear slipping. Its fine for visual use, but when I try to do afocal photography with my Orion Steadypix mount and my Kodak Z990, the constant slipping becomes very annoying. While doing my usual daily perusing of the Astromart classifieds, I saw a used Vixen Porta mount for a very good price (and the seller was absorbing shipping!) Needless to say I jumped on the deal immediately. The mount was shipped on Thursday and promply arrived at my doorstep the following Monday morning! Setting up the mount was super easy. Just remove the tripod legs from the packaging and then using allen keys, attach the mount head to the legs. The seller was kind enough to enclose a Vixen dovetail plate (and its associated screws). Turns out I did not need the plate as my "non standard" dovetail plate fit just nicely in the groove of the mount. Excellent! I also liked the way the tripod collapsed, as the legs could be totally folded inward, making carrying the mount a breeze. The mount was also much lighter than my current mount (well until I attach the wooden legs...might do that at some stage!) and super stable. I now understand why so many people like these new alt-az mounts!

Anyways as with every scope/mount/eyepiece purchase, the weather curse struck. The skies were either cloudy or covered in marine layer for pretty much the whole week. But the forecast was for clear skies for the weekend. Yippee. I had originally planned to drive to my Malibu site to try the mount out but that did not pan out. Well I am planning to do that this weekend!!!! So I did the next best thing, I tried out the mount from my playground observatory in Culver City ;) The targets were all galaxies (its that time of the year), so this was a rather stringent test I guess. First up I went for some easy prey, to ease myself into the observing session and to allow my eyes to do some dark adaptation. M 35 and NGC 2392, the eskimo nebula in Gemini were both were nice. I next went for my first urban galaxy, one I know will be visible, M104, the sombrero galaxy in Corvus. Now this galaxy is ridiculously easy under aussie skies as it is pretty high up in the skies. From the northern hemisphere though, Corvus sits much lower, so the galaxy loses some of its punch. My best views came at 125x with the 6mm TV Radian in place. The galaxy showed its central bulge and tapering arms. the dust lane eluded me from my light polluted site. I noted how nice and "vibration free" my views were.

Next up were some celestial galaxy pairings. I went for M65 and M66 in Leo as the constellation was riding very high in the sky. Best views came in at 37.5x with the Orion Expanse 20mm. I suspected their presence at 30x with the Meade 24.5mm SWA eyepiece in place, but they were clearly visible, well with a little difficulty at 37.5x. The pairing of Bode's galaxy M81 and M82 in Ursa Major looked even better! M81's core was blazingly bright. M82's shape could be easily discerned. And I stumbled on something. Just for fun I popped in my Orion Skyglow filter to see if it could improve the views of both galaxy pairs. My suspicion was confirmed, the broadband filter did make the galaxies much easier to see, probably the function of improving the contrast between the background and the galaxies themselves. I now have a new galaxy busting secret weapon (I guess this only applies if the galaxies are bright enough to be visible without the filter!).

I finished off the night with some bright objects. With Mars and Saturn riding very high in the skies, its hard to not take a look at them. While the seeing wasn't the best, fleeting moments of good seeing allowed me to see some nice detail on the planets. Seeing how the mount was so stable, I bumped up the magnification to 250x. I was in high mag heaven. I love the Porta mount!!!!

So yes I did have quite a fruitful night under my light polluted skies. Next stop Malibu...and hopefully clear skies!

The perfect semi rural sky getaway? Maybe...Solstice Canyon National Park Malibu

Is this my perfect "close to home" semi dark sky getaway? Do I dare say that this is THE place. I don't know just yet. I stumbled on this place, just like I stumbled upon a fellow astronomer, of whom I am now proud to call my observing buddy, a couple of weeks ago. I was just taking a leisurely stroll down to Westwood from my workplace when I bumped into a sidewalk astronomer. Being the crazy person that I am, I went up to say hi and struck up a conversation. Terry was testing out his newly acquired Orion 80ST OTA on a VersaGo mount. Turns out that Terry works at UCLA and is an avid deep sky observer like me! Cool. The very fact that he works here makes it easier as we can meet ever so occasionally to observe together (time and weather permitting of course). Terry is the ultimate "grab and go" astronomer as has his scopes with him all the time so he can observe on a moments notice. His passion for visual stargazing is infectious. He takes the bus to Malibu to observe for goodness sake. NUFF SAID. If that is not passion, I don't know what is.

Anyways after exchanging some e-mails and having a lunch together, I decided to check out Terry's semi suburban/rural sky site, Solstice Canyon National Park. The drive there only takes about 30 minutes so its much closer than Pinos. The other good thing is that it has a view of the southern sky so Omega Centauri, Centaurus A and M83 are a go. The other plus is that I can pretty much go there any time of the year as it does not snow there like Pinos. So yeah so many pluses. Any downsides, I don't know. The site seemed pretty good and kinda dark (hard to tell with the waxing gibbous moon interfering with the views last Friday night). Also the other downside is that you have to walk in. The park gates are closed at night and it is illegal to park at the entrance, so yes there is a bit of a hike to get in (which means you are restricted to truly portable "grab and go" instruments). Fortunately I am at the stage of my observing career where I rather use easy to carry instruments. My 10" f/5 practically lives at home (well until we buy a bigger car or move to a townhouse) and even my 6" f/5 on a modified EQ/Alt/Az mount does not get much use (well it is my scope of choice when I go to Pinos). My main scope currently (much like Terry) is my Orion SkyScanner mini dob mounted on a Orion Paragon tripod. This setup is surprisingly good and solid (and extremely light)!

So what did we get up to last Friday night. Humm lets see. I started to fart around with some imaging (stupid me what was I thinking) using my 6" f/5. We had almost gale like winds that night so that was strictly a no go. I would try again next time I go, but this time it will be with the SkyScanner, if and only if there are no winds!!!!! The skies there were good enough to bag galaxies. Objects tallied that night include M42, the Orion Nebula (in the 6" as well before I got frustrated and packed the damn thing up as I had to observe close to the road where I parked my car.....with cars coming by it was a practice in frustration!), Pleiades, the Perseus double cluster, M41 in Canis Major, M46 and M47 in Puppis, galaxies M81, M82 and M51 in Ursa Major, M65, M66, NGC 3628 in Leo, M104, the Sombrero in Corvus. Was planning to stay up for Omega but ended my session a little past 12 midnight. I guess I no longer have the observing stamina I once had.....I blame it on lack of sleep brought on by being a parent hahahahha!!!!! Also it was super dumb of me to forget to pack my dark jedi cloak. Squinting in gale force winds is NOT fun for observing at all. Terry was way more focused and bagged some new objects he had never seen before, plus some old friends. My plan for the next time I go there is to explore the Camelopardalis region and well as sketch the cat's eye nebula (NGC 6543) in Hydra, as well as stay up to catch southern sky delights!!!!!

Lil baby steps.....afocal astrophotography with the Orion Steadpix Digital SLR mount

Wow talk about coming a long way. I have always been a visual astronomer, and to this day still yearn for my dark sky jaunts when I can hunt down some faint elusive galaxy (or galaxy clusters) with my light bucket, my GS 10" f/5 dob for sketching. But lately I have been getting the itch to dip my toes, or so to speak in some light and easy going astrophotography (if there is such a thing!). The word astrophotography usually conjures up images of super expensive, highly precise mounts and equally expensive CCD cameras and APO scopes. Then there is the steep learning curve associated with it. Well there is also the other side of the coin, afocal and webcam astrophotography of solar system (i.e. bright) objects. While that is cool, some rudimentary deep sky astrophotography is also doable. One might still need a tracking mount and some sort of device to hold the camera in place. This would not have been at all possible in the past with film cameras as one would have to expose the film for long periods of time to get a decent photo. This is where the super expensive and super precise mounts come in. With the advent of digital cameras, one can now mimic long exposures by taking short term exposures and then digitally "stacking" these images together to produce a chimeric long exposure. There are also many software packages that enables one to modify and enhance their images, the best being Adobe's Photoshop. So yes we have come a long way from the so called "dark ages" of astrophotography.

In order to do some basic astrophotography, one would need a digital camera that has a manual setting (to focus starlight at infinity). One also needs some sort of self built in timer to minimize camera shake. Any extra functions such as the ability to control the ISO settings and the exposure time (most digital's have this functionality anyway) will greatly improve your chances of getting workable images.

My initial forays into afocal imaging was met with frustration and grief. This was partly due to me using a non too suitable digital camera. I originally started imaging using my old 5 megapixel Kodak P850 (regular CCD chip). This camera has served me well over the years and I have taken some really spiffy wide angle shots of constellations, comets (McNaught and Holmes) and also some lunar eclipses by holding the camera up to the eyepiece. Seeing how I now had something that could hold the camera to the eyepiece, I though things would be easier. Wrong. Getting the camera lens to align with the eyepiece FOV was quite painful (becomes easier with practice). Also the chip on this camera was not very sensitive to low light conditions. So after playing around with the setup for a couple of weeks, I gave up as the results I got, even with bright objects like the Pleiades cluster and M42, the great nebula in Orion was dismal.

Enter my new camera, the Kodak z990. I bought this camera due to the fact that it was the first Kodak camera to have backlit CMOS sensor as opposed to a regular CCD sensor. This translates to excellent low light shooting capabilities. I have tested this time and time again and the results are nothing short of astonishing. I can hold the camera by hand and shoot constellations from a suburban setting and still get some pretty spiffy shots. With this camera I seldom have the need to resort to flash photography! Needless to say I was itching to try afocal photography again on those mentioned objects. Boy was I not disappointed. I played around with getting the magnification and exposure right to minimize star trailing. With the Orion Skyscanner with the 20mm in at 20x, I found I could push the exposure time up to about 8-10 seconds without significant trailing. Best results however were obtained from 5-6 second exposure. I also played around with ISO settings and generally ISO800 and ISO 1600 gave the best balance of brightness. Also it helps greatly when you can set a 10 second timer to reduce vibration and shakes that show up in your images. With these settings, I managed to capture some of the pastel hues in M42. Bear in mind that these are not stacked images but single images! Can't wait to try imaging under pitch black skies!!!!!!

So what's next on my list? I hope to try and shoot for some of the brighter planetary nebula's such as M57 and M27, the ring and the dumbbell, globular's M13 and maybe some of the brighter emission nebula's like M17 and M8, the swan and the lagoon nebula. Also I would like to try for some brighter galaxies from dark skies sites.....that is when summer rolls around ;)

Quick Dark Sky Fix Mount Pinos 27th August 2011

What do you do when you are stressed out and need a quick getaway to dark skies.....Mount Pinos to the rescue!!!! Was feeling stressed from stuff not working at work and wanted to unwind. That and plus the fact that I have not been under dark velvety skies since my first trip to Pinos way back in May. Seeing that the summer observing season only last between April and October (it gets too cold after that with snow and what may), one has to make the most the the 6 month window. I also wanted to go, but did not want to have to content with the crowds during the summer season. The solution....go a week before the new moon!!! Going there a week earlier can be a two edged sword though. On one hand you have the whole place to yourself. On the other hand, there is the worry that there might not be anyone there, making this kinda creepy. Good thing that there are some like minded astronomers who also happen to enjoy a quiet respite. After making the decision to go, I decided to throw everything together at the last moment. I had no intentions of staying the night as the last quarter moon would come up at approximately 11pm. Hence I only packed my 20x80's (no tripod even!), my trusty Celestron C6 on EQ converted alt-az mount and my Celestron Firstscope 75mm micro dob. I also had with me a recently acquired Orion StarBlast 4.5"f/4 imaging OTA that I wanted to try out. One of the other reasons I wanted to go was to spend time with the summer northern milky way, as well as the centre of our galaxy.

Leaving at 5.30pm from home proved to be a really stupid idea, especially since I know how bad LA traffic can be, even on the weekends. I was surprised to encounter traffic this late on the 405, and on a Saturday! After driving frantically, I managed to get to the top of Mount Pinos before sundown. The views of the mountains as the sun was settling was magical. There is a feeling no words can describe when you are driving, on your way to dark skies, as the sun sets after a gloriously clear day! The temperature was also quite pleasant when I got there, and since I was not staying the night, I did not have with me a beanie or gloves. Bad move on my part (read on later to find out why). I now know never to go up to Mount Pinos without those two essentials. I was also glad to see Dave and his Meade 12" SCT up there. At least I was not going to be there by myself. Another astronomer pulled up later as well, also sporting another 12" SCT. Setup time was minimal for me as did not even bother folding up the tripod. I just collapsed the legs and stuck it in the backseat. As soon as it got dark, about 1/2 hour after I arrived, I started to look at some of the more familliar sights. First up was M57, since it was almost overhead at that time. The ring looked spectacular in twilight skies. Kinda weird, seeing that the views were markedly better than from night skies over suburban Culver City. I noted how the NPB filter made the views even better under such skies. I next looked at M27, the dumbbell nebula, also with the filter in place. As the skies were not totally dark, the views were not as good as when I revisited it later. The dumbbell looked like a ghostly football suspended in space!

Looking south, Scorpius and Sagittarius were looking good and most of the scorpion's tail was above the pine tree line. Now's a good time to revisit some old friends before they get too low when I come here next month. The centre of our milky way was, by now, very evident. I started off the region by just scanning the region between M6/ M7 and M17 using the Celestron Firstscope 76mm. The best views came using the Meade SWA 24.5mm and the Shorty 2x barlow. M22, the crackerjack cluster in Sagittarius and M4 in Scorpius was nicely resolved. The butterfly cluster and Ptolemy's cluster, M6 and M7 filled the FOV with nice sparkly stars. The butterfly shape was clearly evident. M8, the lagoon and M20, the trifid nebula fit in the FOV. I also noted how nice and tight the stars looked and did not notice any spherical abberation. I must have gotten lucky with this scope as they have spherical mirrors and the primaries cannot be collimated. I, however, only use this scope for low to mid power scanning and generally do not use it for high power study. For that I have the 6"f/5. With this scope, both M6 and M7 were much prettier, with more stars visible. M22 and M4 showed even more resolution, with M4 showing the bar of stars clearly, as did M80 in Scorpius, although this cluster was not totally resolved. I next wandered over to Ophiuchus and scrutinized M10 and M12, both globular's showing nice resolution in the C6 at high power. M8 and M20 showed so much nebulosity, even without the NPB filter in place. I like getting lost in the twirling mist of nebulosity, with some dark nebulae splotches thrown in for good measure (i.e. I really miss the Eta Carina Nebula).

Using the lagoon and the trifid as jumping off points, I wandered over to the small Sagittarius star cloud, which appeared "congested" with stars even in the small Firstscope minidob. M17, the swan nebula showed its characteristic swan shape, as well as feathery structure coming off its back (I liken them to vapours rising from its back after a swim on a hot day!). The extra nebulosity around the swan was also very evident. M16 the eagle nebula could easily be made out, resembling the little ghost (as O'Meara puts it). M11, the wild duck cluster was pretty in the Firstscope, with some resolution, but was totally resolved in the C6! I also spent some time with the bug nebula, although details were not as evident when compared to the views I got in my 10"f/5 dob.  Also spent heaps of time perusing globular alley in Sagittarius. I have not done this in a while so it was a blast using the C6. Most of the globs just showed central condensation with little or no resolution. By now my fingers were starting to numb up from the cold, so I decided to have one more look at M27, the dumbbell nebula, then the North American Nebula (it was visible to the naked eye, but almost overhead and very painful to find in the scope) in Cygnus, M13, the great Hercules cluster (nice propellar effect evident in the C6 at 150x) and finally the veil nebula. Have not looked at this supernova remnant in ages so this was a real treat. I spent some time admiring the ghostly cigarette smoke wisps around 52 Cygni and its surrounds. Was all packed by the time the last quarter moon was up...till the next time....