Hello astronomy fans! I got out tonight for a couple of hours after Lenten service got done. I was set up by 8:30 and by that time Venus was being shrouded in clouds. However, the south, east and northeast were O.K., meaning clear sky with below average seeing and transparency. But I wasn't going after Herschel 400 objects anyway, I wanted to see what Comet Lulin was up to. With the help of Sky&Telescopes chart, I found it pretty quickly, tonight it was two thirds of the way to Regulus from Saturn. (Binoculars)
As I was setting up my scope, I looked up and saw that I could see it naked eye! 8) I would estimate it about 4.5 to magnitude 5. In the Celestron the nucleus was very obvious and I could see a broad tail extending toward the NE. I wrote down the naked eye, binocular and telescopic observations and turned my attention to the starfield of 54 Leonis.
54 Leonis is on the Double Star List and its beautiful, but I was after Dwarf Planet Ceres and after checking out the starfield with the S&T chart and binoculars, had it narrowed down to two candidates that aren't shown on my Sky Atlas Delux 2000. The first one I didn't like because through my telescope it showed a strong blue-white color, too much like a star. The second one had this nice dirty yellow color that asteroids seem to favor. I'll know for sure the next time out because one of them will move and I bet its the "extra" star sitting near 70 Leonis. 😉
Saturn was beautiful at 200X. Titan to the west and one of the "amateur" moons to the east. Very elegant thin ring plane, atmosphere banding and tiny gaps between the rings and the planet. Just beautiful.
Another look at Comet Lulin and it had moved half the diameter of the Moon in about 90 minutes! That baby is hauling ass! 😮 Then about 10:30 clouds rolled in and made it a short, but Glorious Night for Astronomy!