Nick's Astronomy Observing Log

So I finally received my Z8 Deluxe this past weekend while we were in California. Got home and immediately assembled it. Much thanks to the folks over on the CloudyNights.com forums who have assembled these before me for posting about the instructions being incorrect. After staring at all the parts for a while, I finally got it all together. Only issue is that I ended up with the eyepiece holder on the wrong side. I'll fix that this weekend.

I've had it out a few times, but did a lot of looking at the same stuff I had previously. The one thing I'll mention is how much better Saturn looked in the 8". It was much easier to make out the moons. Two things that I checked out that were new for me were M81/82 and M3. I had a heck of a time finding M81/82, and in fact really just stumbled onto them by accident. I need a lot of work on my starhopping! The two galaxies were pretty faint, but with averted vision, I was able to see them a little more clearly. No structure was evident, but I was pretty impressed with what I could make out under my orange/yellow zone skies with a bright moon out.

M3 was brilliant! It took a few minutes to find. I picked up a copy of Turn Left at Orion, hoping it would aid in my finding objects, and in a way it did. The diretions it gave weren't working for me. It had me looking for beta Caroli just west of the midpoint between Arcturus and Cor Caroli, and then going slighly east from there to M3. After not findng it for a while, it dawned on me while looking at the chart in the book, that M3 is pretty much on that line between Arcturus and Cor Caroli. I lined up my telrad on that point and then checked in the scope and, bingo! M3 right in the field of view. After enjoying splitting doubles, I now find that I really enjoy globular clusters as well! This hobby just keeps getting better!

Cloudy skies last night, so nothing to look at. Hoping for some clearer skies tonight, or at least this weekend.