Observing report -- September 25, 2013

Tonight was the first time out with Neptune, my newly-named new-to-me Meade LX10. (Neptune because blue because Meade, geddit? Sigh.) It was also the first time out with [strikeout]The Horse With No Name [/strikeout] the Astronomy wagon, which really has to be seen to be believed. It's a repurposed wagon put together by my father-in-law and painted by my family: the kids, my wife, my in-laws and me. (M51's on the top, though you'd never know.) The OTA goes inside, padded by cushions, and the wedge goes beside it. On top is the tripod, held in place by steel rings (btw, marrying the daughter of a retired millwright who makes his own wine was a really excellent decision), and on top of that a chair I use while observing, all held down by a $10 tie-down from Home Hardware that really, really works well. Bonus points: I look crazier than ever.

Setup at the park took about fifteen minutes -- not bad at all. After that it was time to start looking. What'd I see? M57, becoming a traditional first target and test of alignment; worked well. Almost a hint of green, but not like seeing it through a C11. Then on to M56, which looked a fair bit fainter than I remember from the same session...not surprising, since that was out at Boundary Bay and this is from a light-polluted park. M27 also found w/o difficulties.

For fun, tried M81/M82, but saw nothing -- not even the stars I usually use to hop there. Thought it was because it was low in the soup, but it might also have been alignment probs. I went over to M31, but had to dial it in manually -- it was off by about 5 degrees. Went to where the controller said M33 should be, but nothing there....hard to tell if I was in the righht place or not.

Tried for NGC 7009, the Saturn Nebula, but nothing -- not even after re-aligning and coming back. Found myself using the atlas to figure out where I was, which I hadn't expected. Tried for M72 and M73, but no luck; M72 wa incredibly faint (or I was just in the wrong place, but I'm pretty sure I found where I was in the atlas.)

And then...and then the clouds started rolling in, so I packed up and walked home. Nice: only ten minutes to pack up. Not so much: surprisingly heavy to carry up the hill.