Wow what a night of variety! This included a comet, weird weather on another planet, missing galaxies, disappearing galaxies, and some new first sightings.

I started out at 9.00pm last night with clear very transparent skies, although seeing was variable, and no moon. I started out by tracking for Comet Hartley 2 again. Although it had shifted a degree or two since my last sighting, the view was otherwise pretty much the same; not stunning, but the idea of seeing the left-over ice from the solar system’s formation is mind-blowing.

Then I tried for C23 in Andromeda again, and again failed to see it. So I turned to Jupiter, and found that!

A couple of interesting bits of weather were visible; there was a large white bay on the northern edge of the north equatorial belt, and a dark low projection on the southern edge. See? The north polar region appeared completely bland.

Having enjoyed that I tried for M74 – nothing, so tried for M76. Got a really good view of this, and it looked just like M27.

Then I got brave and decided to try for the two faint Caldwell galaxies in Pegasus; C43 and 44. I spotted both – just. They were both right at the limits of visibility, and I suspect are strongly affected by light pollution. But detected they were.

I had to work really hard with those, and harvested the photons as long as possible.

Feeling invincible I then gathered in two new Caldwell objects: C1 is an open cluster close to the north star Polaris. Polar objects are hard to locate because of the way the Dobsonian mount operates, and using the finderscope at high elevations breaks the back.

The most amazing thing about this cluster is that it’s right outside the plane of the galaxy (most are inside), and it’s also extremely old – nearly 5 billion years, which is probably half as old as the galaxy itself.

I then tried for C5, and failed, before locating C12.

This was a bright large circular glow, brightening gradually towards the middle. Nice! There’s also a rather nice open cluster right next door, and I’m now kicking myself for not sketching them both in the same field of view.

So I had had a fair deal of failures, but some new stuff, and lots and lots of interest! You can’t ask more than that from a night under the stars.