skies looked good

The plan tonight was rich and multifaceted.

Get more data in the area of β (beta) Aurigae. Collect more information on Nicole's potential moving object and my weird stationary shape. In the area of IC 2149. See (rather image, with the DSLR) if anything was moving or different or there or not there. Her short blinking movie showed something comet-like moving in the area; but, curiously, still no sign of my object. Two objects?!

Wanted to try collimating the big SCT. With a mask.

And after that, try imaging Mars again!

I also wanted to have some fun, do some general deep sky observing. My initial list was mostly double stars. Earlier in the day I had added many DSOs to the SkyTools list. Some from the Finest NGC, the RASC 40 Brightest, etc. Over 100 objects now.

Although the Moon would be setting later, around 2:00 AM, I still wanted to view some fuzzies. The Moon, according to SkyTools 3 Pro, would be magnitude -9, at 37% phase, 6.2 days old. Unfortunately that would add more light for some of the evening. The Moon would be about 37° from β Aur.

Not a lot of clouds. Yeh! Lucky. Another clear night. At the beginning of this trip, I had expected maybe 1 or 2 clear nights. 3? Awesome!