March 9th 2007

Setup C8 at 7:20pm to start cool-down. Decided to do some double star observing. Looking at Castor, double star, smaller appears yellow, larger white-blue through 14mm Meade UWA and the C8, Sissy Haas book says 4.8" sep. Through 10mm lanthunum easier to split but stars not as sharp. 38 Gem bigger gap than castor double maybe three times larger, using 14mm smaller looks yellow, bigger star looks white-yellow, book says 7.3" obviously my estimating needs some improvment. Seeing has improved as well as transparency, I still have to learn how to measure those properly. Tried to spilt Propus (7 Eta Gem) sep at 1.8" could not split. Sigma 162 in Perseus, a triple sep 1.9" and 20.1" can just make out bulge assume it's two of the stars the third is easy to see. The two that are touching are the same yellow color the third is white maybe blue-white. Saturn is really clear tonight, Cassini ring easy to see. The planet's ring makes a kind of black line across the planet, never noticed that before. Can see four moons. Using 6.7mm saturn still reasonable clear, a band of clouds easily visible, kind of light brown. Reguleus in Leo, double star is easy to split since it's so huge, easy to see in 14mm. Eskimo neubla easy to see looks like one bright object in center. M50 open cluster, using 40mm fills eyepiece maybe 150 stars visible all look white-blue. M47 open cluster, small tight double in cluster, 50 to 100 stars, if M50 is scattered more north and south M47 looks more east and west in its scatter. NGC2335, in 40mm maybe 25-30 stars in 14mm not much beter. NGC2343 small open cluster, there is a small double star in it, one star yellow the other grayish white. M48, big open cluster, fills 14mm, in 40mm more interesting still filling the eyepiece. Well over 100 stars. NGC3115, spindle galaxy, easy to see in 40mm, in 14mm central bulge visible and two light streaks coming out of it, used averted vision to see. NGC32423 ghost of jupiter, easily visible, bluish in color in 14mm.