Comet Lulin

I saw this visitor last night but the sky was a bit dusty and the comet was very dim. Tonight there was little wind and the sky was much clearer. I could see Regulus and 3 or 4 stars of Leo's mane plus 3 stars of his tail. Last night I could only make out one other star besides Regulus. Tonight Lulin was about a half degree from SAO 98931 at a PA of 290 degrees. Both nights it was a bit off from the position predicted by CdC. The comet was very easy to spot tonight. I did a one star alignment on Regulus and the comet was in the field of view of my 26mm ep. I could not make out any tail but the core was about a half degree in diameter. The Beehive cluster was also much clearer tonight. Saturn was a nice view with my 10mm and 2x barlow. The rings were just a razor thin line through Saturn's globe. The night was almost a disaster though. Just after glimpsing Lulin, a line of clouds moved in over the top of Regulus and Saturn both! I amused myself with Saturn as it was peeking in and out of the clouds until they moved on past Regulus and I was able to watch the comet some more. I said goodbye to Lulin about 11:00. If it's still around in a month or so I may try again with my 8" in Missouri.

M42 Great Orion Nebula

It's been awhile but the weather was nice and clear, not too cold, and I decided to check out the occultation of M45 by the first quarter moon. I set up my ETX-70 and aligned on Capella and Castor with no problem but when I selected 'Great Orion Nebula' it slewed to Orion but no nebula. I think it was pointed somewhere near Orion's belt. I then tried several of Orion's bright stars and tried M42 again. No luck. Finally I aligned on Betelguese again and selected M42 from Messier objects. Bingo, right on target. I'm wondering if the named object (orion nebula) is entered wrong in the database. I was able to see Theta 1 and 2 easily but couldn't split the trapezium even with a 10 mm ep. The nebula showed up nicely though. Nair al Saif and NGC 1980 nebula were pretty too. I found the moon and M45 and a dim star near the dark limb of the moon but decided not to wait for an occultation. M45 wasn't nearly as nice with the moon nearby and I didn't want to fool with the moon after my last painfull experience!