I got out for three and a half hours. I got in observations on Jupiter and caught the beginning of the Ganymede shadow transit. Neptune was an easy find, it is still hanging out by 42,44,45 Capricornus. Uranus was easy to find back also. The asterism below the Circlet of Pisces that pointed the way to Uranus on Oct. 9 has now been joined by Uranus.
I wanted to sketch the starfield of 2 Juno, but the southern sky was pretty filthy. Too much moisture. Fomalhaut was only dimly visible.
The zenith was pretty good, and I recorded NGC 7160, an open star cluster in Cepheus that I had overlooked for the Herschel 400. It's a pretty little thing.
I had binocular looks at Aldebaran and the Hyades, M45 the Pleadies, M36,37,38 in Auriga, M42-43 the Orion Nebula and Orion's belt. I also checked out Epsilon Auriga and see that it is now dimmer than Eta Aurigae and about the same brightness as Zeta. Those three stars make up "the Kids" of Auriga and last year Epsilon was the brightest of the three.
I drew the starfield of asteroid 19 Fortuna which lies near Zeta Taurus. With luck, I'll be able to tell which "star" Fortuna is the next time I go out. I also observed M1 the Crab Nebula, but can honestly say I've had better looks at it. Transparency was not real good last night.
My final observation was getting the position of Mars. It is now northeast of M44. It shows a disc in my scope, but not much detail. I'm glad I went out, I got some good work in.