After two months of not going outside with my scope for a variety of reasons, I made no excuses this morning and dragged myself out to observe, starting at 4:30AM.
I started with Saturn, which was still fairly low in the SE. It refused to accept magnification, blurring constantly, and could barely make out the rings against the planet at 100X. Cassini's Division remained invisible. 3 moons, though.
Glanced up in the sky, and here come the mottled clouds, just 10 minutes into observing! I debated packing it in, but then I thought, maybe they'll leave as quick as they came. Do something easy to pass the time. So over to Alcor/Mizar in Ursa Major. Very pretty, nice split at 40X. Wait… is that the back edge of the cloud mass in the west? It was!
So… it's Spring in Winter, with Leo's tail due south. From memory, I zipped over to M65/66. Both were bright in the eyepiece, and… No, it can't be! NGC 3628 was visible with averted vision. Understand that I have looked at the "triplet" many times over the years, and I have never spotted so much as a hint of 3628 from my deck. Simply too faint. But there it was. Jumped up to 100X, and it took direct vision, but barely. Back at 40X, it was unmistakably a galaxy. Ah. Either this is that rare "perfect" night or my freshly coated mirror is gathering more photons, or both.
I pulled out my Hershel 400 list and flipped to the Leo section and starting picking off galaxies. An hour later, I'd nabbed 8 new ones, quite a night for me. I've gotten more, but only at Flatin Farm or the like. Not from here. Not from the middle of Rochester.
I had to pack up so I could help with waking kids, but it was an amazing night. Keep looking up!