got some observing in (Blue Mountains)

I did not keep good observing notes over the weekend. I recall we spent some time observing Friday night and Saturday. Katrina flew the big 'scope. The seeing was marginal. But the transparency was surprisingly good on one of the evenings which afforded some decent views deep sky objects. I recall suggesting some red stars. So we viewed the Garnet Star, aka μ (mu) Cephei. And La Superba, aka Y Canum Venaticorum. Of course, we took in Saturn.

I fired up the netbook and SkyTools 3 Pro and looked for candidates. For the stars, gave Katrina the reference with the SAO number, which helped in TheSky 6.

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I kept an eye out for aurora. But didn't think I saw anything. Despite the Spaceweather alert...

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Katrina kindly sent her notes...

from the Saturday night...

Noted the conjunction of Mer, Ven and Jup and how Mer and Jup were more "lined up", Mercury naked eye before 9.30pm

M5 (globular - looked really pretty)

NGC 6826 (blinking planetary)

M84 (just a little smudge - moon was starting to rise)

Saturn (and my funny little sketch of it and moon orientation - Titan, Rhea, Dione and Tethys observed)

M53 and M13

then... the Blake stuff!

mu Cephei

Cor Caroli en route to La Superba

Algieba

54 Leo

Alula Australia

(was not taking very detailed notes looking at the doubles - noted what they were, but not how they looked)

Coma Cluster (binos) with Tom pointing it out

Thanks!

[ed: The Blinking is aka Caldwell 15.]