James and Mae joined me for an impromptu star party last night at Alpha Ridge.  Skies were clear all night.  Winds were gusty for a while, but settled down to mostly calm by 9:00.  Temperature was down to 25 degrees by 11:00 with 40% relative humidity.

James and Mae imaged the Tadpole Nebula (IC 410) in Auriga with a William Optics refractor.  I made a (mental) note that the telescope was a Z71, but I looked back and saw that James posted first-light images for a Z61 with a Canon 250D/SL3 camera in December, so my note may be erroneus.

I added 800+ sub exposures to my imaging of the Seagull Nebula (IC 2177) and did some visual observing with my 8″ Celestron Starsense Explorer Dob.  Seeing conditions seemed better than what we’ve been experiencing this winter, as stars appeared steady and I was able to get a clean split of the double star Eta Orionis (magnitudes 4 and 4.9, separated by 2 arc-seconds).  I revisited some of the open clusters that I observed two weeks ago under bright moonlight and added a few more, including M50 and M35.  I attempted some very faint fuzzies, including the rare winter globular M79 in Lepus, the reflection nebula M78 in Orion and the Crab Nebula (M1) in Taurus and was able to see at least a hint of something for all of them.

Since I mentioned a rare object in Lepus the rabbit, I’ll share this joke that my ex-girlfriend liked to tell some 35 years ago:  “How do you catch a rare rabbit?   How? Unique up on it!”  Ah, well,. maybe you had to be there.

The night went without incident.  James and Mae left at 11:15 and I locked up HALO and the park at 11:35.

Hoping to host impromptus on some warmer nights soon, now that this cold snap finally seems to be ending (knock on wood)!

Ernie