Observing Session Summary - Saturday 15th February 2014

Butser Ancient Farm was open Saturday. Invited my brother along for his first free session. Was very glad he came. The full Moon was out so didn't expect to get all the targets I had planned earlier that day. However, we had a good go.

I used 'Philip's Stargazing with Binocular's' and February's Sky At Night magazine binocular's tour to plan the session. Here I provide the list of targets and a summary of the observations.

Kembles Cascade: Had another go given I couldn't find it in January. I successfully starhopped to the right location but I believe the Moon made it difficult to pick out the cascade of stars.

M36, M37 and M38: These are all in a similar location in the Auriga constellation. I was tough to find them. They were very faint but pretty sure I got them.

M41 & M44: I hadn't realised but these were in the same part of the sky as the full Moon (in the East) so had no luck.

M81 & M82: Was very keen to see these since the supernova in M82 was peeking and a good target for binocular's. However, unfortunately, the Moon was also the reason I could not do the star hop to find them.

Here is a link to my session log:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1Q_jaEOMLGVakhUQm10OUdNQU0/edit?usp=sharing

I have also been working on a list of the tasks to plan and log a session. Once I have this complete I will post the basics here.