Observing report -- January 31, 2013

Out on the front porch again with Ranger, the Dob. I was only out for an hour and a half, but managed to see:

• Jupiter, of course! Lovely at 100X, but did not stand up to Barlowing tonight. Met the neighbours a few doors down when they walked by, and showed them...they were pretty impressed.

• NGC 2392, aka the Eskimo Nebula, which was surprisingly easy to find. Pretty sure I was able to see the central star at 200X with an O3 filter. This may be my first Caldwell object (#39).

• Struve 1083, which "Turn Left At Orion" describes as a yellow-blue pair. I could see some difference in colour, but it was quite hard for me to detect. Pretty, as far as double stars go.

• NGC 2420, an open cluster in Gemini. Faint, but responded well to a long stare. This page has tons of detail on it, including Herschel's notes (!) and what I think may be the best thing ever: a diagram of the Milky Way galaxy showing what arm it's in. I've really, really wanted to get a good sense of our galaxy for a long time, of where things are in relation to the sun and the galactic core, and this is awesome. I did a quick sketch, and it compares not unfavourably with the one on that page. (--What an awful sentence.) That's surprising, given that person used a 12" scope. Couldn't see any of the stars they reported seeing with AV, though, nor any glow of unresolved stars.

• Looked for NGC 2331; found where it should be, but no luck seeing it. Bleah.