Hello everyone! I had a great night tonight. I went out and set up at 6:15 p.m. because I knew that I'd be racing the two day old gibbous Moon for time.
Venus was first up. It's low, round and the colors are bad, but it was nice to see again. I looked at Sirius and since the atmosphere was a lot steadier tonight, I could definately see Sirius B. It doesn't hold direct vision, but with averted it pops in and out of view during periods of steady seeing.
I got a naked eye, binocular and telescopic observations of Mars. The Read Planet reaches its western stationary position on March 11th.
I nailed 7 Herschel 400 objects tonight! The first for me since last fall. All galaxies in Ursa Major. NGC's 3556, 3310, 3610, 3613 and 3819 (a Herschel 400 2 for 1), 3665 and 3675. 3310, 3613/3619 and 3675 were the best looking. I'm sitting at 282 for the Herschel 400.
Moonrise came at 9:03 p.m. I got an observation on R Leporis, Algol was at a minimum tonight, I recorded the position of asteroid 4 Vesta, watched the Moon thru binoculars for a while and finished with Saturn. Titan to the west and two other moons to the east. 4 hrs. tonight, 22 y.t.d. and 1202 total on my Celestron G8. AGNFA!!!