October 13th 2006.

Went out to the old Emma Cemetery today 33 36 40.30 N 101 24 42.46 W. Someone told me about it a number of years ago, it has become a favorite observing location for members of the South Plains Astronomy Club, http://www.southplainsastronomyclub.org/ I got there around 7:20pm, sunset was at 7:16pm. It was a beautiful night, clear, good seeing I could naked eye see M31 and M8, for me seeing was around 6.5 Mag. I setup my new Orion st120, this was its first light. I started out alone working through my prepared Messier list for the evening M31 is always pretty easy but fun to look at, I used the st120 with the Meade 5000 UWA 14mm, M31 was still low but later that night when it was higher it looked amazing. At around 9:00pm Tom Heisey showed up with his 6" binoculars I helped him set it up, I was afraid he was going to get a hernia :-) At 10:00pm Colin Smith and Tom English showed up. Colin organized everyone to track down Uranus and Neptune. Uranus was easy enough but we never could figure out which star was Neptune Colin's 6 inch reflector was the largest scope there with a removable eyepiece capability.

Using star hopping techniques I observed that night, M31, M33, Double Cluster, Pleiades, M52, M27m M8, M22, M13, M7, M6 and M69. I was really pleased with the st120 which had arrived that morning. The tripod was my EQ2 which I got with my ST80. The EQ2 struggled a little with the heavier eyepieces, I'll have to add weight to help it out or upgrade it. I forgot my observing chair, won't do that again. By 11:00pm the temperature was 50 degrees, I left at 11:28pm.