Having an awful time with moisture on my lenses, even with the binoculars. I’ll get it figured out. Got new binoculars on the way should be here by Thursday. It was a little colder tonight than last so didn’t take the 70 out. It will be warming up this week, heck the lows are supposed to be what the highs were today.

Spent about 45 minutes looking around anyway. Saw the comet but just barely, likely due to the binoculars. They are pretty beat up, were when I got them at the garage sale. The sky was excellent! Speaking of the comet, it has gone quite a ways since I first saw it in Eridanus back in December; all the way to Perseus and then quite abit of movement since my last sighting.

Oh yeah, it was 47 years ago today Explorer 1 was launched! Explorer 1 is the first successful United State satellite. Talk about going places Voyager 1 is over 11 billion kilometers away and Voyager 2 is not far behind. They were launched 20 years after Explorer 1 and have been operating for the last 27.

We have a great sky tonight. Viewing was good. I took the 70 out and had some fun. First stop was Rigel as it was the first alignment star. I wanted to go there anyway looking for the red star they were talking about in the last issue of Sky and Telescope. Didn’t see it thoughafter spending just more than a few minutes of looking; figured I’d come back to it. Next it was Procyon. alignment done.

So I checked out Saturn and Titan, I had some issues when I changed lenses from the 25mm to the 15mm as I had some moisture blurring the image because Saturn was so bright. This had cleared by the time I got to the Double Cluster in Perseus. This has to be one of my new favorites, will be coming back here for sure with a barlow (I forgot it) and a smaller lens. Outstanding. Don’t know why I am so taken with it, but, I am.

Off to the Andromeda galaxy, very nice, want to look at that with a bit more power too. I was kind of suprised at the size of it in the scope. I’ll be back. So I go to M41, another one I like almost as much as the Double Cluster. Yet more power next time.

Then I thought well I’ll go check out the Pleaides, the scope had quite a time once it had done the biggest part of the slewing, but it got there. I almost always check these out and always like them. I was trying to check out the stars a bit more closely and the scope was still acting strange.

No problem, I’m fairly close back to the Double Cluster. Now the scope is really acting weird. Time for another alignment? Didn’t bump the scope or anything, but what the heck. It picked Sirius as the alignment star. It “found” it by pointing roughly to Ursa Major…..hmmmmm not good. I think it was too cold for it because the autostar controller wasn’t responding too well. It was only 12 degrees too, so likely bet. I was nice and toasty so didn’t notice, rule 1 for me….if it is cold….wear the cold gear from Under Armor worth EVERY penny!

Spent the rest of the viewing time in manual mode, kind of fun but a little tough with the 70 because you have to point the scope and have no finder scope. Lots of fun none the less, checked out some stars I need to look up. Figured it would be a good time to see where my horizon is compared to the software I have. Will make planning easier.

When I came in, some serious frost had accumulated on the scope! I won’t forget about the red star either.

ESA20-20SMART-120-20 Up or Down

Clouds are coming in and the forecast is for high thin clouds to take over for the night. That’s okay I suppose; at least it is warmer. I may check later to see if there is some openings and re-evlauate. It is supposed to be good viewing tomorrow night. I ordered a pair of Meade 12 x 50 binoculars and they should be here sometime in the coming week. They will replace the garage sale specials.

One planet that is up in the morning but I can’t get up early enough to get everything I need to done before daylight is Jupiter. Thankfully I have NJScope to fall back on. I hope he is willing to give some tips when I get around to trying astrophotography. I’m sure he will, he has some great pictures.

Well I got this blog transferred. It took a little longer than I had anticipated. I did get outside with some binoculars and the sky is in great shape. The problem is, it is very cold -10, so I didn’t take the scope. I did manage to see the comet and a few other fuzzies that I need to check out in more detail with a scope….maybe tomorrow night.

They say a servicing plan has an 80% chance of failure. They also are planning to de-orbit Hubble into a safe re-entry probably in the Pacific.

In what is probably a last ditch effort to save the Hubble Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md) is leading a fight to save the Hubble. She did it once and we can only hope she can do it again. I wish her luck!!

Read the story if you haven’t already on Space.com.