Hello astronomy fans! I got out for 4 hours last night, and what a beautiful night it was. Clear, dry, fairly warm and no wind. Venus is really looking great with a nice slim cresent and noticably bigger in the FOV.
I started in on the Herschel 400 after that and bagged six. NGC's 4261, 4273, 4281, 4303, 4216 & 4365. The stand out objects were the first 3 which can be seen in the same FOV. There are actually 4 in that FOV, but NGC 4270 is not on the Herschel 400 list. Also NGC 4303, better known as Messier 61 is a really nice galaxy to look at and even shows hints of spiral structure. NGC 4216 looks like a smaller version of NGC 4565 in Coma Berenices, a fine little edge on spiral.
Then the Moon rose at 1217. I thought about getting one more H-400, but how many times does a person get to watch the Moon rise in their lives? I looked at it until it cleared the horizon in my binocs and then just stared at the wonderful spring sky for a while until at 12:43:30 a brilliant 1st mag. meteor tore through eastern Ophiuchus and Scorpius. White, duration 1 second, a bit of a trail. 8)
I finished with looks at the Moon in my telescope and a binocular look at the Coma Berenices star cluster. AGNFA!! (I'm going out again tonight!) 😉