nebula in Orion (Toronto)

Was chatting with the neighbours across the hall one day and astronomy came up. I told them about and showed them my telescope. They freaked! They told me that via their living room window that we could get to the roof of the building.

43.710° N
79.399° W

So that night we divvied up all the gear and hoisted up atop the apartment building skulking around like cat burglars.

Instrument: Celestron 8-inch SCT
Mount: Vixen Super Polaris
Method: star hopping

And, believe it or not, from the roof top of a little 3 storey building, just north of Yonge and Eglinton, from the middle of a big city, we could see the nebula in Orion! Little stars in the middle. I was as surprised as anyone.

Messier 42 (M42) aka the Great Orion Nebula. And the Trapezium.

a haiku-like poem

Found this in one of my creative writing journals:

I glimpse the moon
gibbous, plump
tangled in hydro wires

dark sky watching from Chatsworth

My friend Mary Jane invited me up to the family farm just outside Chatsworth (south of Owen Sound) for a quick weekend visit and a chance to do some stargazing from a very dark location. We took in a planet, Jupiter and its big moons, if I remember correctly. And we also enjoyed a protracted 1x viewing of the whole sky over a long period. Love doing that. Feeling the Earth turn underneath the stars.