The Northwest Georgia Astronomical Association had an afternoon cookout in honor of it's 5th year as a loose collection of folks who love to observe together and are generally averse to the complications and politics of a formal club. Plenty of good food and an opportunity to actually see my fellows under the light of day and meet some of their families and friends.

Of course we all hung around so as not to miss the opportunity to observe. The forecast was perfect, the early afternoon promising, the late afternoon not so promising, and the evening more disappointing than not. In the late afternoon a light covering of high clouds began to move in and they stuck with us, with random clear respites, until around 10 PM. But as soon as it cleared up the condensation struck. Lots of dew. Everyone pretty much packed it in and went home by 10:30 PM.

However, I did manage to add a few new reports to the lists for the Messier observing Club, the Globular Cluster observing Club and the Herschel 400 observing club.

10" f4.7 Reflector | 20mm eyepiece (60x) | 9mm eyepiece (133x)

• NGC 7078 / M 15 (GC Club) : Fairly clear with the 20mm eyepiece with a well defined core of stars with many outlying stars in a halo around it. The view is much the same in the 9mm eyepiece. I'll consider this one a concentration class III.


• NGC 7089 / M 2 (GC Club) : It took me some time to track this one down with the 20mm eyepiece, mainly because the high atmosphere haze cut down on the number of stars I could see for reference (I don't use a magnifying finder). Once located I found a slightly larger twin of 7078 with a somewhat larger core of stars and smaller halo of outriders. I put it at a concentration class V.


• NGC 7296 (H400 Club): I used the 20mm eyepiece to get to the spot I thought I should be in, but everything just looked like the usual thick scattering of background stars you find in the field of the Milky Way. I had prepared myself with an image and a few other observer's descriptions, so with a succession of higher magnifications (15mm then 9mm) I was able to make out a somewhat triangular grouping of stars that matched the descriptions I'd read.


• NGC 7243 (H400 Club) : With the 20mm eyepiece and a good bit of willpower, I could make out a large and very loose oval grouping of stars. Moving up the 15mm and 9mm didn't reveal much else.


• NGC 7209 (H400 Club) : I'm only half certain I saw this one. My eyes and reflex finder tell me I was pointed at the right location, but the view in the eyepiece looked very much like the fairly uniform rich field of the Milky Way. I'm listing it anyway because other observer's descriptions indicate that's the way it should look.


• M 74 (Messier Club) : Tracked down with the 20mm eyepiece, this galaxy is only barely visible. It was from bumping up the magnification with the 9mm and then a 6mm eyepiece that I was able to discern a faint round patch of light, quite diffuse, and requiring averted vision to clarify.


• M 77 (Messier Club) : Moving down toward the horizon a bit, I was able to locate this one fairly quickly, despite that this is the most light-polluted part of sky from our observing field. Very similar to M 74, but with a discernibly brigher core in the 9mm eyepiece.

Of course we all looked at Jupiter, which was pretty as always and had 3 visible moons. Being close to time for the Leonids, we had a meteor about every 10 to 15 minutes.

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