Observing Notesfrom the Tuckahoe IrregularsWow what a great night! It was a last minute decision to go to the field but it was well worth it. I suppose this is my first "summer" night out under the stars. Mosquitoes, heat, humidity and the sounds of a million bugs. Although it was hot and humid there was no dew on anything all night long and there were some really nice cool breezes blowing through every once in a while. It was so nice not to have to wear ten layers of clothes and gloves. Joe Wojtecki and another couple were in attendance. My first observations were of the moon an Saturn. The moon looked spectacular with the Earthshine giving it a 3D effect. Saturn was close enough to the moon to fit both inside a wide field eyepiece. The atmosphere was unusually steady allowing detailed views of the planets. The moon started setting and really gave way to dark skies. I hunted down faint galaxies in Leo, Virgo and Coma Berenices. Globular clusters such as M3, M13 and M53 were all showing themselves nicely and holding up well to high power. Joe had an especially nice view of M3 with high power. I spent a lot of time on them. The Eskimo Nebula was also a stunner. I also spent a lot of time running it up and down my eyepiece collection. NGC 4565 in Coma was just awesome. A long thin edge-on galaxy that took up a lot of real estate in my 40mm Wide Field eyepiece and showed its dust lane prominently. M104, the Sombrero Galaxy was absolutely the best I've seen it. Many great clumps of galaxies in Leo showed themselves easily. The NGC 3190 group were all easily visible including the tough NGC 3187. A fun trio of galaxies, M65, M66 and NGC 3628 were easy targets as well as the outlying NGC 3593, just an eyepiece field away from this group. There were tons more objects observed but I was just rambling through the skies trying to enjoy as much of the evening as I could. I packed it up after one final view of M13 which was just a beautiful sight for sore eyes. Lyra was just coming up over the trees as I left the field a little after midnight. What a great evening for getting out under the stars! Doug Norton |