Wow, what a night! I did see the ISS pass overhead at 7:34 by my watch. I caught it at the zenith and then followed it from the 45 degree angle down with my binoculars. It didn't disappear into Earth's shadow until I could see the horizon in my binoculars. 8)
Venus, the Great Orion Nebula and M41 occupied my time while I waited for enough darkness to go Herschel hunting. I did my homework before I left the house and got all nine objects to complete my Winter Group. All but two were open clusters, the two in question were planetaries. I had seen NGC 2438 in M46 before, but hadn't seen NGC 2440 a few degrees south of there. They're both nice and all the open clusters were fairly easy to find and for the most part, pleasing to look at. 🙂
Comet Lulin is cruising through some gorgeous stars in Gemini. It was about halfway between Delta and Zeta Geminorum tonight. It really looked special, but then the sky was FABULOUS tonight.
How fabulous, I really found out when I viewed Saturn. OMG! FIVE moons easily seen, atmosphere banding on the planet, the gaps between the ring system and the planet, and Cassini's Division was even visible at this narrow angle! Tonight might just be the best I've ever seen it in my Celestron G8. 🙂
I finished with another observation of Ceres, now cruising past 40 Leo Minoris. I also got binocular views of M46-M47,