A Binbrook Report – Friday, March 3/06

I don’t remember inviting the clouds but they rolled into Binbrook about the same time we did. The forecast 30kmh winds blew them over the park in batches, forcing us to shelter by the picnic pavillion and make do with targets of opportunity.
Tim Harpur arrived just as Gail and I had set-up, and he wasted no time putting his nice new 10″ Schmidt-Newtonian on the also nice, also new Atlas mount. What a good-looking combination!
While I took advantage of the my dobsonian’s fast slewing capability, Tim took images of the Moon, Pleiades, and Orion Nebula. A new object for my log was NGC 2158, a small open cluster that is usually overlooked because it is rather faint and nearby M35 isn’t.
Out of the wind, the sub-zero temps didn’t seem too bad and by 9:15pm, the sky had pretty much cleared. We continued observing and imaging for about another hour; Tim taking several exposures of galaxies M65 & M66, and M1 the Crab Nebula while Gail & I checked out the likes of M96, M79, M44, M48. When the the cold began to creep through boot soles we finished off with a look at Saturn then packed up to a coyote serenade.
Not a bad night at all!