22 September 2004

Observing Location	TotL
Atmospheric Conditions	Clear Sky Clock said it was going to be a good night and it looked like it when I left home but it went downhill throughout the night. I was tired from the past three nights of observing and the conditions weren't great so I left my binoculars on the Moon in case anyone stopped by and wanted to look and looked through the scopes when they had a target.
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binoculars - Charlie Tele Vue TV76 - Ben Tac 102 - Peter
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Ben Cacace Peter Tagatac

Target	Moon
Time	22Sep04; 1954 EDT
Category	Moon
Comments	The terminator was going right through the center of Mare Imbrium. Montes Caucusus was showing good on the terminator side. Mare are more mottled tonight than they were last night and do not have the striking impression of flatness that they exhibited last night. The ray structure is beginning to become apparent

Target	Perseus Double Cluster; NGC869 and NGC884
Time	22 Sep04; 2306 EDT
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	A pair of open clusters in Perseus. Two bright stars in a diagonal over two bright stars on a parallel diagonal. The lower stars are surrounded by dimmer stars, this is NGC 869. About the same distance below again is an open grouping of stars with many small stars among them and some smudge, NGC 884. I got here by going a little more than a field of view above η Per.

Target	Garnet Star, μ Cep
Time	22Sep04; 2328 EDT
Category	Stars
Comments	It looked like a burning ember, very orange and large - almost like Mars. Observed in Ben's scope.

Target	NGC457, Owl Cluster or ET Cluster
Time	22Sep04; 2336 EDT
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	In Cas, half a field of view to the upper right of #4 Cas ((δ Cas). A small cluster most evident by a pair of unequal brightness stars - the eyes - on a diagonal to the right. There is a much wider pair of stars further out to the right but they are more equal in brightness and appear bigger so NGC457 is between them and δ Cas. The "body" is very faint and extends a short distance to the upper left.

Target	M103, NGC 581
Time	22Sep04
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	Next to #4 Cas (δ Cas) is an arc of three bright stars that points counter-clockwise at M103 which is about as far away from the end of the arc as the arc is large. It represents a row of closely spaced, dim stars, in a shallow arc, with a very dim star above the middle star. NGC663 is about a degree farther along that same line [We determined on the 23rd that these were actually marker stars for NGC663 and that M103 is closer to δ Cas and would not be visible in my binoculars.]

Target	NGC663
Time	23Sepo4; 0024 EDT
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	This is a tiny cluster that appeared to me to be two or three stars. It is about a degree away from M103 moving away from &deta; Cas. [Actually it is about a degree away from the row of stars mentioned above which were erroneously identified as M103. But the hop is still valid.]

Target	Kemble's Cascade and NGC1502
Time	23Sep04; 0036 EDT
Category	Deep Space Objects
Comments	I got to something that looked like it coming off of Cas but Ben said I was in the wrong place. I found it easily coming off of Algol and α Per (Mirfac). I was able to get back to it coming off Cas with the binoculars hand-held but it is difficult to slew them diagonally on the Bogen 410 geared tripod head. At 48x in Ben's scope there were many tiny stars visible around the double stars of NGC1502