A much better night tonight. I got the word we weren't working tomorrow due to the sap rise about 8 p.m., so I packed up and was out there observing by 8:30.
Dwarf Planet Ceres was first (now close to 40 Leo Minoris), followed by another great apparition of zodical light (much better than last night's). Saturn had a vast array of moons in attendance, and then I turned my attention to Comet Lulin.
Wow! It was indeed close to Delta Geminorum (thank you Jeff!), so much so that the comet and Delta Gem. comfortably shared the same FOV at 80X. I should have tried for Comet Kushida, but forgot about that when mesmerized by Lulin. 8)
At 10:22 the Herschel hunt was on and I journaled NGC's 2311, 2324, 2395, 2355 and 2420. The first two are in Monoceros, and the last 3 in Gemini. NGC's 2324, 2355 and 2420 are pretty "diamond dust" clusters and are the best to look at, although 2355 is a real tough star hop. My Herschel count is now 240.
I finished the night with some old favorites, such as M3, M53 (also nabbed NGC 5053 nearby. It's still faint ::) ). M13, M51 and the Leo Triplet.
It was a glorious night for astronomy! 🙂