Observing Report for 4 April 2010

Location: Prince of Wales, NB
Time: 2000-2230
Weather: 6 degrees Celsius, Clear
Attendence: Doug, Karen, Marc, Carla, David M.

Report:
I was able to get some nice pics(with my Olympus fe-180 digital camera) of Venus and Mercury, which were fairly high up in the west after sunset. Venus was much brighter, higher in the sky and to the left of Mercury. I tried to get a pic of Orions Belt, but it didnt show up in the camera, for some reason.

Marc brought his 10x50 binos and a Messier chart and worked away at a Messier search. He helped me find M50 above Sirius. It looked like a hazy, faint, small cloud of stars. Thanks Marc!

As I began searching for M50, I stumbled upon M41, which is south of Sirius, with my 20x80 binos. It was an easy to spot cloud of stars.

With my binos, I could just barely make out the rings of Saturn, which was part way up in the sky, to the east. Mars was a bright red disk, almost straight up and was very close to M44, which always looks spectacular in my binos.

Doug and Karen allowed me to view M1 Crab Nebula, in Taurus, thru their 8 in reflector. Very nice, it looked like a hazy exploding star. This was my first view of M1. Saturn was spectacular with its rings easily separate from the planet. Thanks Doug and Karen!