A most excellent report there Matt, with all the main highlights.
Janice and I read it together and two lines made us laugh out loud.
1- Catch me I'm gonna fall off this ladder. ( 10 sec. chuckles )
2- M82 was obviously a galaxy that has had something bad happen to it.
( that one made us laugh for a whole minute - couldn't stop - funny!)
Here are a few of the other items seen that I can remember:
- Nine Virgo galaxies in one field of "Termi-Nagler" view - forming a
kind of face formation.(includes m84 & 86 I think).
- M3 Globular cluster with many stars resolved
- M13 Globular with "dark lanes" showing in front of it and propeller
- NGC 6207 - companion to M13 in same field of view - 3D distances
- NGC2903 - barred spiral with a clear bar and end spirals showing.
- M57 - very large and very green with nearby galaxy showing
- On the smaller scopes: Epsilon Lyr, the garnet star in Cepheus, M92
- Ghost of Jupiter
- Hubble's variable nebula (looks so much like a comet!)
Also, I wish to mention how many of us were, at one point in the
evening, on astro-highs, walking around hooting like lunatics for a
good ten minutes, whilst whoever was at the eyepiece would launch a
series of uncontrolled expletives. "Bring out the death ray!" we'd
say jokingly. Ni! Ni! Ni!... Ah, isn't altitude a fine thing!
I'm not perfectly sure of this, but I think the prize went to Mike
Wirths, who indulged in no less than six consecutive fairly x-rated
rapid-action expletives balancing from the top of his 25" obsession
ladder. Nice to see you're having serious fun as well, Mike! & Thanks
so much for having us over...
Good to see you all again!
Roland
P.S.- This was observing session #289 for me - only 10 more to get
done before May 24th, midnight, to achieve my self-imposed challenge
of 300 observing sessions in the three years - for 100 avg. per year
since I got this SCT-8"... wish me luck!
