Observing Report -- January 9, 2016

Another night out on the front porch, but unlike last time the clouds did not roll in. Hurrah for that!

First up was M78. I think I tracked this down, but it's hard to be sure; the nebulosity, if any, was very faint. Not a good one to track down from Suburbia, I guess.

Next up was M42. This was my first good look at it through the 10" Dob, and OH. MY. GOD. I saw a ton more detail than I've seen before. Dark lanes & dark spots, a big swooping curve to the south, and actual nebulosity with AV for M43 rather than just "Yeah, I think it's there". The 6mm eyepiece really brought out the dark lanes. Just amazing.

I looked up HD 34445. Why? Because it's got an exoplanet, that's why; 0.8 Jupiter masses, a 1049-day period and about a 2AU orbital radius. The star is 152 +/- 5 light years away, meaning the light started off around 1855. Neat...but the fun was in knowing what it was. Nearby, there was an asterism that was almost shaped like an E, but seemed to have one member running away...this amused me.

Searched for OC NGC 2194, an entry on the NGC Finest list, but that was a bust -- simply could not find any sign of it. Looked in the atlas and saw that OC NGC 2169 was nearby, so checked it out -- and it was absolutely charming. It's known as the 37 Cluster (though I hadn't known this or heard of this OC before), but I immediately thought of the Greek letters Delta and Sigma. It's only 8 million years old, and seems bright for being 3700 light years away.n Very nice.

Picked another random OC, NGC 2129 in Gemini. About 18 suns were visible in the 6mm. It kind of reminded me of the Lunar Module -- something about the sort-of-triangular shape. The sketch on this page matched what I saw pretty closely. It's young (10 million years) and relatively far (7000 light years). NGC 1664 in Auriga however, reminded me of a dandelion on its side. Faint, but still easily picked out. It's about 3900 light years away; not sure about the much brighter star right by it, but I'm guessing that one's much closer.

Took a brief look at the Double CLuster (again, wonderful through the 10") and then called it a night. Not terribly long -- 2 hours all told -- but completely enjoyable. And ZOMG is the Intelliscope ever wonderful; there's no way I could have looked at as much as I did without it.