I met up with Jackie and Jim who were already set up at the alternate site on Tyneside. They had been productive despite the frigid temps, already having bagged Mars, some fuzzies and comet Tuttle – though a little uncertain about the latter due to its faint appearance in binos.

Since it was so cold and getting there late, I didn’t bother with the small scope I had brought along. I just pulled out my 7×50 binos and began the search for Tuttle for myself. We were experiencing a few thin clouds passing through the area which made identification of some constellations a little challenging. Eventually I found Aries and Triangulum, and worked my way to where Tuttle was supposed to be for today. Sure enough, there it was. Faint but apparent in the binos. This was in the area where Jackie and Jim had been looking so it confirmed their findings. No discernable tail but a nice fairly compact but diffuse halo. I couldn’t make out a distinct core with the binos as Glenn had with his scope. Nearby was a faint M33.

Afterwards I decided to see how our old/new friend Holmes was doing since I hadn’t looked at it for about a month. It had moved out past Perseus B. I was amazed how large it had gotten since I last saw it. It was obviously a lot fainter, but had grown (a rough guess) to about 1.5 degrees across. It was located so that it formed a triangle with Perseus B and open cluster M34 which appeared brighter than Holmes, but not nearly as large.

Jim had the Orion Nebula in his scope so I tried to look at it with the binoculars. The nebula was quite prominent as usual and I could make out a few of the brighter stars near the center, including 1 of the trapesium stars. The Trapesium was very clear in Jim’s scope, even at moderately low power. Very nice on a cold night.

Before succumbing to the cold, I turned toward Mars. A small disk was resolvable in the binos, but Jim’s scope made it quite clear. Unfortunately due to cold problems with his scope, he didn’t elect to try higher magnifications so we couldn’t make out any surface details or see a polar cap. But it was very bright. We may have to try this again with a ND filter and a higher mag eyepiece. If we get really lucky, with the forecasted warmer temps, maybe we’ll get a clear night when we can last a little longer.

Jackie had just left and Jim and I were considering doing the same, when Martin from the conservation area stopped by for a quick and pleasant visit. We revisited a couple of our earlier objects for his benefit. Then before we left, I scanned the area around Mars and made out some old friends M35, M37, and a little further M44 and M45.

Generally the seeing was quite good despite a few thin clouds interrupting sections of the sky from time to time. It would have been nice to be able to stay out a little longer but I guess in our old age, we just weren’t as hardy as we used to be. Maybe it’s time to get some battery heated underwear! But it was really nice to get out for some observing after a long absence. And I had a chance to try out my new laptop with Carte Du Ciel for checking objects which proved to be quite useful instead of flipping through paper charts. The only problem was that after an hour, the screen started to get washed out from the cold. Hmm, maybe time for another toy, er, I mean tool. My birthday is coming up soon – is that justification enough?

Cheers!