Observing - 91!!

I didn't post after my last 2 observing sessions so I'm rolling them
all into 1. The location was Tierra Del Sol, a dark sky site about 60
miles east of San Diego at bout 4,000 feet. My scope is a Celestron C
9 1/4. The darkness was generally good (Milky Way easily visible and
the limiting visual magnitude at least 5.5-6) but the seeing and
transparnecy varied a lot (4-7 for the seeing and 3-8 for the
transparency). The nights in question were 8/7, and 8/11.

My goal was to continue to work through the Messier Objects. The full
list of items observed is:

Jupiter, M53, M64, M63, M94, M106, M12, M10, m107, M14, M11, M26, M75,
The Moon, M39, M109, M52, M103, M31/32/110, Lots of Meteors!

In addition, I did a quick tour through M512, M11, M22, M6, M8 and M15
using GoTo and comparing Eyepieces while waiting for the Persieds to
really get started. I also did some binocular observing including M4,
M6, M7, M31, M42, the Pleides (sp?), and the Hyades.

The Highlights:

M106: Even with a bad location, it was a nice, apparently edge on
galaxy estimated to be about 12'x5'. It was very extended with
averted vision with a bright, diffuse core.

M12: Nice Globular partially resolved with the 35mm Panoptic.
Resolved to center with the 17mm Nagler. About 8' in diamter with a
large arc of stars to the north. Nice pairs and strighs throughout.

M10: Larger, maybe 12-15'x10'. Elongated North-South, very elongated
depending on where you say the edges are. Some resolition to the
center with the 17mm Nagler, but a sugary glow behind the resolved
stars. Quite a bit of extension beyond the dense core. Seems almost
an open cluster over a globular.

M11: Absolutely beautiful cluster deep in the Milky Way. About 12'
across. Fine, lacy structure of faint stars creates whorls of diamond
chips around voids reminiscent of patterns on butterfly wings.
Anchored by a brighter, blue/white star.

Moon: The terminator was approaching Plato and Archimedes, just
clearing the Montes Alpes. Mons Pico and Mons Piton were casting long
shadows. The Montes Alpes look like cauliflower in the setting sun.
Ripples on the floor of the Mare Imbrium look like sand dunes.

M31/32/110: My first try at these with the telescope although I had
visited M31 many times with Binoculars. M31 is HUGE! Arms easily
follwed for 1 degree to either side of the core and appears to be over
40' wide. One arm on the M110 side obviously separated from the
galaxy core. M110 a diffuse glow but M32 bright and clear.

Meteors: They weren't as good as I had hoped because of thin clouds,
but they were still very nice.

So, After all of this, I was going through my Messier Objects and
discoverd that I now have 91 of them! I know this isn't a race and I
go back to visit my old favorites regularly, but I was surprised to
see how many I had found already. Still, I image it is going to be a
good 6 months before I finish them all. I completely missed all of
the galaxies in Leo. My remaining list is:

M1, M33, M37, M50, M65, M66, M68, M74, M76, M77, M78, M79, M83, M93,
M95, M96, M97, M105 and M108. I've also branched off into other
searches including some nebula hunting and some double stars. It
doesn't look like I'm going to run out of targets anytime soon!

Clear, Dark Skies

Mark