Surfing Sagitarius

Last night was so good I thought I'd try for a repeat tonight and see what I could find in Sagitarius besides Jupiter. It's a little lower in the sky and a bit hazier than Ophiuchus but there's so much there it's hard not to find something to look at. I tried for M17, Hewitt-White's 'Too Many Names Nebula', using my 7x50's to get a feel for the suggested star-hop. I easily found the 5.4 mag star with a nearby smudge and so tried it with my trusty 8" dob. Bingo, right on, and there she was, swimming prettily in her stellar lake. With my 25mm ep the swan shape was very clear with no filter. I could even occasionally make out the 'wing' shapes. I was also able to catch M22 and M28 globulars, nice but small, M16, M18, and huge M8. All in all it was a good if short and somewhat humid night.

Ophiuchus Globulars

Finally, a nice dark clear night after two months of cloudy semi-daylight in the sub-arctic north. We just got back from a long trip to Alaska, and, while it was interesting, it wasn't exactly an astronomer's dream! I WAS able to finally see one of Jupiter's moons in my trusty 7x50's on our 'ranch' in Montana. I decided to make up for lost time by trying for M10, M12, and M14 featured in the August S&T. These showed up nicely in my 9x50 finder but M14 was a bit harder than M10 and M12. Four of Jupiter's moons: Ganymede, Io, Europa, and Callisto were pretty pinpoints, Europa just peeking out from the edge of double striped Jupiter, and Ganymede&Io were bunched up together on the opposite side from Europa and Callisto.