Hello Friends!
It has been quite a while since I have gotten myself out to observe and even longer since I’ve written a report. The usual curveballs of life caused me to drift away from observing, but now that things have calmed down, I feel that the bug has bit me again and it’s time to jump right back into the hobby.
Just a little backstory to start off. My wife and I did a pandemic downsizing where we sold a house neither of us were really crazy about and temporarily moved into an apartment to save money. As a result, I currently don't have a backyard of my own and my 12”
That left the issue of location. The apartment complex is out for anything other than observing the moon due to the massive amount of ground lighting. My former remote observing location I haven’t been to in a while now hosts a locked gate, so I have found myself back to square one when it comes to observing sites. I have had my eye on a spot not far away, a small gravel parking area next to a baseball field. Unfortunately this spot is still close to the road so I had to creatively position my car to shield me from the occasional passing headlights.
Tonight’s session wasn’t intended to be very serious. Much more of a knock the dust off my observing skills and make sure I still remembered how to star hop my way around. Because of this I only focused on using one eyepiece (
Shortly after dark I packed up my gear and headed out with the goal of checking out some of the brighter galaxies in Leo. My first target was the Leo Triplet.
M66, M65,
I continued to move on upward into Leo and picked up M105 with a very faint
From here I decided to change course. I pointed my scope at Denebola and moved my way down toward this galaxy rich portion of the sky. I picked up M99, M86, M84, M60, M59, M89 and ended with M87. I could have pulled a little more out of this area, but I was starting to get tired.
Even though this session was not as in depth as I usually go and the views were somewhat feeble compared to past observations with my 12”, it felt really good to have a telescope out and viewing some galaxies!
We have another clear night in the forecast, so I am fully intending on getting out again with a little more preparation this time.
Thanks for sticking around and reading my report.
Clear Skies!