On May 3, 10:13 pm, "George Normandin"
wrote:

Edit

Saturday night was superb at Cherry Springs State Park. The clouds
were gone by shortly after 11:00 p.m. and the relatively few observers
present at the park were treated to a truly excellent night of deep-
sky observing. I had great views of many springtime galaxies and other
deep-sky objects through my "new" 8" Starsplitter Tube Dob, Tony
Donangelo's 14.5" Starmaster Sky Tracker Dob, a 16" Teeter Telescope
Dob, the 16" AstroSystems TeleKit Dob owned by John Mills, and the 20"
Starmaster Sky Tracker Dob belonging to Gary Honis.

I haven't transcribed my taped notes yet but some of the more
memorable highlights included seeing at least 9 galaxies
simultaneously in the heart of the Virgo Cluster - the environs of M84
and M86 - through the 20" with a 31mm Tele Vue Nagler T5, a near
photographic view of M51 and NGC 5195 through the 16" as well as a
spectacular view of the Leo Trio using a 28mm W.O. UWAN, and observing
an old favorite, NGC 4762 (the Mini-M104 Galaxy), through the 14.5".
When I trained my 8" on M104, it looked better than I've ever seen it
through such a small aperture. The 8" also provided a fine view of
NGC 7000 (the North America Nebula) with the help of an Orion
UltraBlock filter and a 35mm Tele Vue Panoptic.

Let's hope that Potter County skies will be equally as good for the
ASH Cherry Springs Star Party this coming weekend.

Dave Mitsky