Observing last night was largely a bust. It was mostly cloudy until almost 23:00, after which it was patchy enough for binoculars. Just before midnight it really cleared, but many people had already retired for the night. I dilly-dallied until about 00:15, not trusting the sky to hold, but finally opened the scope. I got about 40 minutes in and the curtain slammed shut again. As predicted.
Nevertheless, I saw…
M55, a smallish-medium globular cluster SE of the Teapot in Sagittarius. Followed up with M28, another globular in Sagittarius, and a brief stop at Saturn. Didn’t spend much time on any of these and was feeling restless and tired. Sort of forcing it.
M31 Andromeda Galaxy was up, but pretty low in the sky still, but there I went. It appeared… oddly unimpressive at 62.5x, filling a good bit of the field of view (f.o.v.). Bright core, northern edge was well defined, or more than the southern edge, any way. Looked for M32 but had to actually use the GOTO to find it (embarrassing). Small, but bigger than stars, a fuzzy oval.
While I was focusing on the NE sky, the SW was clouding over again, and by 00:55 most of the sky was gone. I did attempt M15, a globular in Pegasus, but to no avail. The evening was done.
Bruce and I did see an IRIDIUM flare while he was scanning with his binocs. It was in the SE at about 40º elevation (?) around … 22:30 – 23:00 – not sure; forgot to check the time. It was super bright, ramping up, FLASH!, and ramping down all in about one second. It’s the second one I’ve ever seen, I think.
A Pilgrim of Earth and Heavens 