Date: Friday evening, 4-Feb-2005
Location: Backyard, Palm Springs, California
Equipment: Tele Vue 76 (3" f/6.3) refractor

Revisited a few of the objects from a couple nights ago again with the
TV76 plus some new ones.

Tried to spot some nebulosity in NGC 2264, the "Christmas Tree" cluster,
but could not.

However i could see NGC 2261, "Hubble's Variable Nebula", as a very
small patch through the 9mm Nagler. Oddly when i tried with the UHC
filter i could not see the nebula at all.

The Rosette nebula was interesting. With UHC on the 9mm Nagler i could
see a sort of grayish mottling around the central cluster. Mostly
noticeable to the north. It's hard to describe what it looked like.
There was "something" there but it didn't really look like a nebula at
all. Just a strange presence that didn't look like empty space.

Revisited open cluster NGC 2301. I really like this little cascade of a
cluster.

Open cluster NGC 2232 contains the star 10 Monoceros. Pretty field with
tendrils of stars dangling southward from the bright star and an arc of
stars just NW. Nice binocular field as well.

Open clusters NGC 2335 and 2343 are both rather small and faint. Can
only resolve a few stars in 2335 whereas 2343 is sort of boxy in shape.
Both fit in the same 53x field.

NGC 2353 contains one bright star that seems to overpower the rest of
the cluster.

Last couple of objects are just over the border into Puppis... M47 is
beautiful! Bright, large, very nice through the TV76. Interesting
patterns of stars with a nice double near center at the southern tip of
a little "kite" of stars. M46 is also large but very different from M47.
Fainter stars but lots more of them. Jerry Lodriguss' image of the
clusters compares them well...

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/B_WINTER/M46_M47.HTM

And for a special treat when i put the UHC on the 9mm Nagler planetary
NGC 2438 popped into view! Note the red planetary is visible in the
image as well.


-Florian
Stargazing.com