A Trio becomes a Quartet

It was another beautiful cool clear night so I went out to check on the trio at 8:30 and, sure enough, the moon had joined it to make a quartet.  The moon washed out Spica for awhile but Mars and Saturn were visible unaided and eventually Spica popped into view as well.  I decided to stay out and tried my hand at some Sgr Messiers with my trusty 7x50's until about 11:00.  Most notable was the big globular in Sgr, M22.  M28 wasn't as noticable but it was visible.  M8 and M20 added to the view as well.  M54 was also visible but just barely as was M69.  I tried to see what the limiting magnitude unaided was and was able to see Eta Cyg, a 4th magnitude star in the neck of Cygnus.  Some 5th magnitude stars in between Eta and Sadr were also occasionally visible, just winking in and out of visibility.  The sky is pretty dark, but my eyes aren't what they used to be!

Mars, Saturn, Spica Trio

After almost two months of smokey western skies washed out by full moons, I'm back at it in Missouri.  Our travels to MT, WA, OR, ID, WY, and NE this summer was almost a bust astro-wise.  July's new moon was spoiled by pretty much overcast skies in the northern cascades.  Campgrounds are also typically forested so observing is difficult at best.  Our one night in Craters of the Moon was great though, even though it was pretty much washed out by the moon.  After an interesting talk comparing the geology of Idaho to the geology of Mars, Judy noticed a distinct triangular pattern in the west just after sundown.  It turned out to be the Trio of Mars, Saturn, and Spica.  This added to the dawn spectacle of the Jupiter/Venus lineup that I had been watching off and on all month.  Tonight, even though there were some clouds in the west, I drove up to the little hill just north on our driveway to see if I could spot the new waxing moon along with the now familiar trio.  The moon popped in and out of the clouds but the trio required my 7x50's at first.  By 8:50 though it made a nice naked eye sight.
I did make a welcome addition to the observatory's bag of tricks though:  a new iPad 2.  I quickly downloaded a $3 copy of Sky Safari (S&T Apr 12) and have been putting it through its paces ever since.  It's a great program and I haven't yet exhausted the capability of the el-cheapo get-acquainted version.  I may just spring for the pro version this fall.  I've mainly been using it for daytime exploration and nighttime naked eye and binocular observing.  If the skies stay fairly clear tonight, I may try for some more interesting targets with my 8" dob.
Well, they did and I did, and I 'discovered' a new way to point the scope.  I just shine my laser pointer through the focuser (without an eyepiece).  It works great, particularly near the zenith where pointing usually involves some gymsastics on my part.  I've been wanting to see the Ring Nebula again and I found it fairly easily using the new technique although I had forgotten how small it is!  Next I used Sky Safari's Tonight's Best feature and checked out Albireo, the Beak of the Bird.  It's blue and gold colors got a 'wow' out of me.  I finished off with the Great Hercules Cluster.  Had a bit of a problem finding Hercules and wandered around in a random trapezoidal pattern for awhile before I found the right one.  Start at Deneb, proceed to Vega, and extend just a bit to the right to find the familiar trapezoid, and the cluster is along the western-most side.  It was about to disappear over the house but I got to it in time and it got another 'wow'.  It's a beautiful huge splat of tiny stars.
Now I need to make some sort of adapter to hold the laser pointer in line when it is in the focuser.