Well, I got out for five hours last night but it wasn't easy. I packed up and went and there wasn't much but some 1st and 2d mag. stars showing. Then it started clearing in the SW, so I spent the first hour looking at some old favorites, the Orion Nebula, M41 and used the binocs to view M45, Aldebaran, the Hyades and the Perseus Double cluster. I spotted a satellite going through the Hyades and followed it all the way to M34 in Perseus before it faded. I took a look at Algol and think that it might be going thru a periodic dimming, then picked up another satellite with a noticable golden color and followed that from Algol all the way to the NE horizon.
I got a great observation on asteroids 3 Juno and 20 Massalia in southern Leo. I'm going out tonight to see if they move, but am 90% sure I found them both from the chart in Astronomy magazine. They both do not fit in the same binoc FOV, but the two fields overlap.
Then it was back to the Herschel 400 hunt. I nailed 5 galaxies, all in Ursa Major. NGC's 4026, 4088 & 4085, 4102 and 4051. 4088 was the most obvious w/4085 in the same FOV. I also found NGC 4100 nearby, but that is not a H400. 4102 reminds me of the Eskimo Nebula in Gemini. I had a devil of a time finding 4051. It took me from 11:36 p.m. to 12:49 a.m. to find it. I finally had to go from Cor Caroli in Canes Venatici to Beta CV to a prominent two star asterism NE of that and extend out from there towards 65 Ursa Majoris. Then I found it on my second try on that route. It's nice and I'm glad I stuck with it.
This whole time the sky kept getting better, but a persistant cold eastern breeze kept at me and it was strong enough that I couldn't journal outside except at the telescope where I had to clamp down on the pages. It was pretty darn cold last night too and I had on all my winter gear and chemical heat pads for my hands. I finished with a long look at Saturn (was that tiny moon Enceladus tucked just off and below the west side of the ring?) and M3 and M51 w/NGC5195. (Love that 13mm Televu Ethos.) A tough but Glorious Night For Astronomy!