Hi everybody! I got out for 3 hours tonight. It was really breezy, (REALLY breezy), but the sky was clear and I just had to go.
I got 5 Herschel 400's, finally making some more progress in that direction. All galaxies in Ursa Major, NGC's 3898, 3938, 3945, 3949 and 3953. The two most interesting were NGC's 3938 and 3945. 3938 is BIG, but it is a ghost! It is a very large, diffuse patch of faint light through an 8 inch SCT. 3945 is small and diffuse, starlike, but sits in a pretty starfield.
Jupiter was the icing on the cake tonight. Once the Moon rose at 10:16 p.m. CDT, I turned my attention to the King of planets. At first I could only see 3 moons because the breeze was making the scope shake. Then I could make out a bump on the eastern limb. Then, in moments that the scope would steady, I could see a small dark dot on the cloud tops! Cool! I think I was seeing an Io shadow transit. I followed that until 11:30 when the clouds rolled in and I had to pack up.
The Moon was pretty, too, but I have covered all the Lunar II targets at this phase and couldn't find any new ones to journal. I guess that's good, in a way.
It was A Glorious Night For Astronomy!