Sunday, July 04, 2004

Conditions:
Clear, becoming cloudy with high cloud, bad transparency, moderate seeing, moon just past full

Targets Observed:
Comet C/2003 K4 (LINEAR), epsilon Lyr, zeta lyr, delta lyr, beta lyr.

Notes
Sketched starfield around comet and was able to positively identify it from the starfield in Cartes Du Ciel. Looked dim and the coma was just barely visible. No sign of a tail.

Looked at double stars in Lyra, notably those in the asterism. Hard to resolve epsilon lyr, but Epsilon1 Lyrae was occasionally clear.

Zeta Lyrae are a lovely pair like Alberio, consisting of a a blue dwarf and a red star.

Delta Lyrae is another nicely contrasting system. Blue and orange although the orange of Del2 looked more yellow tonight.

Beta Lyr was a bright blue/white star with a faint orange companion.

I was going to try searching for Struve 2470 and 2474 but it clouded over before I could try.

Finished with a look at the moon and the Mare Crisium. It looks like a happy face, with the eyes made from creaters Peirce and Picard and the mouth being the Dora Tetyaev.

Good night...I love standing in the dark letting my eyes adjust, listening to some music, classical or jazz, on the computer. I use that time to pick out the constellations, naming them and the bigger stars, looking for patterns. Then I'll get the bins up and trained on things. Lovely.

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