Observing session 7th January

I had a nice clear night last night, which surprised me somewhat, given the weather in the afternoon and the forecasts, but thought I, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I got out about 2100 last night, and was surprised, that even with my little scope, I ended up having to make a couple of journeys. A couple of chairs, the maplin flight case with my ep's in, Turn left at Orion and a notebook and a red torch, which in true Blue Peter style I'd prepared earlier.

I started out just looking at a couple of the favourites in wide field. The Pleiades and M42 in Orion. Nice a crisp pinpoints on the Pleiades. I thought I'd try a little experiment on M42 and upped the power in use a couple of times (my barlow arrived yesterday morning). Oh boy was I glad I did this, suddenly the, what I can only describe as "wings" of the Nebula, opened up before my eyes... WOW!!!! I spent quite sometime just staring into the ep and then realised that M43 was in the same place (having checked Turn Left at Orion).... It was then I discovered my first mistake... My nice red torch, that I'd made, was still too bright... Looking back in the scope, my first thought was that I must have knocked it as the "wings" were no longer so visible, then I realised I'd blown my night vision with the red torch (Damn !!!!). Need to rethink the torch idea. However, once my eyes had settled down again, I think I was able to catch M43 there also. As an attempt to use the, not so bright idea (yet too bright to use) torch, I used the non viewing eye on the book and found that, in theory I ought to be able to see some of the stars at Sigma Orionis. I took a long hard look, and reckon I was just about able to get A and E. Still not bad with my little scope I reckon.

Now I found my second mistake of the night. I wanted to go and find new objects, but as I hadn't planne anything, I was having trouble working out where to go next. I spent some time looking through TL@O to find objects in the same area. I settled on trying to find M44 the Beehive cluster and after some searching, I was able to locate it. I did find I tended to move the scope in the wrong direction, which made star hopping a little tricky, but I'm sure I'll get used to this moving things with an upside down view eventually. I had a look at Castor on the very slim off chance I might be able to split it, but I wasn't holding out any hope based on Sigma Orionis, and I was correct in my assumptions. Not a chance.

I had a quick look at Mars and using the barlow, got up to 120x and was able to make out a small disk (better than the small blob the other day!!).

I moved around some more and went searching for M81 and M82. Here again my inability to track the scope in an upside down way hampered me a lot and after searching for about 45 minutes I gave up, I'll return here again and keep looking, but at this point I noticed my toes were beginning to feel like lumps of ice and figured this was a sign I ought to be heading indoors to thaw out. Still I thought to myself, a few more minutes won't hurt (much). I went back to the Pleiades and M42 for another 5 minutes, had a quick scan around Cassiopeia and picked up NGC663 into the bargain, then headed indoors for a hot drink.

All in all, a successful couple of hours, although, in hindsight, a dimmer torch and a bit of forethought and planning what to look for is in order for the next time the pixies decide to grace my area with clear skies.