Observing Report -- July 17, 2013

I wasn't gonna go out, and then I did. As a result, it was kind of a mellow night and a mixed bag for observing.

Saturn was up first; it was low in the sky, and it simply did not support 200X like last time. Noted Titan and moved on to the Moon, which was lovely; saw the Montes Riphaeus mountain range, which is very pretty.

M14 took me a long time to track down; in the end, it was barely visible at 100X. Not only that, the whole star field around here is sparse and faint, and it was so much longer to find than I epxected. I looked up M27 -- another one that took a long time -- and found HD189733. No sign of HD 189733b.

Nearly finally, I tackled Sue French's column in S&T for August 2013: stuff in Auriga. Success: V Aurigae (carbon star), Strue 2547. Sorta success: Struve 2545 (split into two, not three). Failure: Teusch, NGCZ 6751, all the Bernard dark nebulae, NGC 6814.

Final look at M11 -- oh man, that's pretty -- and it was home for me.