tried for Himalia again (Blue Mountains)

10:32 PM, Tuesday 12 June 2018. Checked the space on voice recorder: 12 hours. OK.

Instrument: Celestron 14-inch SCT
Mount: Paramount ME
Method: Go To

11:16 PM. Went for Himalia again. Left the observatory inner door open. Hopefully no bugs tonight.

A text message came in... Funny timing. Rhonda asked if we were stargazing. I told her the skies were not great.

Switched from the 55mm to the 27mm.

11:23. Closed in on the little moon...

Identified the bright star PPM 229302, north-east of Himalia. To the south-west was a wide pair of equal stars, mag 12.4 range, with GSC 5577-508, in-line, or pointing to Himalia. Right in the zone...

No joy, yet.

Saw the star GSC 5577-185 to the west of nearer star to Himalia. SkyTools said it was a mag 14.3 star. Ooh.

Back to the ocular.

The mozzies found me... Went to the house for bug juice.

Tagged the dim star south of GSC 5577-367, a J-star, at magnitude 14.4. Going deeper.

Oh! For a second I thought I saw GSC 5577-677 at magnitude 14.7! South-east of the moon. ST3P showed it was possible...

Nope. Crazy. Too dim...

Made a note to look for Jovian shadow transits with ST3P. Hopefully there were some coming up in the next couple of nights.

Closed the door.

11:43. Lost the sky. Told Rhonda. She asked if there were any fireflies around. Yep. I saw some last night. And tonight.

Chris M popped by. "I just saw that tumbler." At 11:40 according to his phone. What?! I zoomed outside but it was gone. Dang! Around Draco and Cassiopeia (above), near Cygnus, heading roughly east-south-east. He saw a flash from the THO. I offered to check Heaven's Above but couldn't find anything. Weird. [ed: Looks like it might have been the TELKOM 3. Path from Heaven's Above. But only mag 5.6...]

Grabbed another Cosmic Cream Ale. And munchies.

Fireflies were still going...

Warmer tonight.

11:57 PM. Pulled the Davis weather station page. Wind: 10 minute average 0.0 km/h; direction WNW; instantaneous speed 0.0. Humidity: 85%. Oh, high. Barometer: 1010.4 hPa. Temperature: 19.9°C; dew point 17.3. Close.

Checked the ADDS in infrared black and white. Looped it. The lakes were still cold. Clouds everywhere!

Disconnected from the mount and parked.

12:16 AM, Wed 13 Jun '18. Closed the roof.

12:28. Just noticed ST3P said Mars's moons are easy!