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Tonight was a special star party given by MAS for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. The event was held at the Onan Observatory at Baylor Regional Park. The Observatories 16" telescope was augmented by a dozen member scopes. I was there with
my new 10" LX200. It was a fun night. We not only were treated to the beauty of the heavens but we also privileged to have David Levy attend with his Questar. Yes, David Levy as in comet Schoemaker-Levy 9 which plunged into Jupiter in 1994. David has discovered 21 comets, published 29 books, and writes for Sky & Telescope magazine. So did I talk to him? Nope, I was too distracted by the incredible sights that the LX200 was revealing.
So what did I see? A whole lot. I went after the Messier list again and of course forgot to write down all the objects. Oh well, that just leaves more
for next time.
Messier objects observed were: 13, 22, 3, 8, 12, 51, 52, 64, 4, 92, and 81. M92 was incredible! It's easily one of my favorites now. The list of remaining unobserved Messier objects is shrinking quickly!
But deep-sky objects didn't get all the attention that night. Mars of course was a frequent target but with the dust storms on the surface it didn't
reveal much detail. I was finally able to see Uranus and Neptune. Their colors were really interesting to see. So green and so blue. You don't see a lot of green through a telescope so that
was great. Of the planets in our solar system, Pluto alone remains unobserved. I'll be going after it before too long.
A special guest this evening was comet Linear. It was visible in binoculars and was a nice fuzz ball through the scope. It looked a lot like an extend
globular cluster. It was fuzzy but not as compact as globulars.
Another great night under the stars.
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