what a great viewing, and it was even cloudy

got my chance to try out two things tonight, the fruits of my attempt at collomation with an artifical star, and my new telrad finder.

The telrad is the best invention ever!! no more getting lost in the sky while using my finder scope! I found M51 in about 5 mins!! on a cloudy night with a half moon! first time ever for M51! as i only have a 6" scope it was almost invisible, however i believe with less moisture in the atmosphere and without a moon it would be much more visible. i could see the core of M51 and also the core of the smaller interacting galaxy. i spent about half an hour looking at it and i think that i got as much detail out of it as possible given the conditions. no real dust lanes but im chuffed none the less.

Saw venus for the first time also! I only have my scope since last November so never got a chance to see venus. its like a very very distant half moon at present but the seeing wasnt very good so il give it another go tomorrow.

The creme de la creme was jupiter, first time also I saw that! I was as excited as the first time I found Saturn! its very low and there was thin cloud but i could still make out cloud patterns on the surface during brief clear still periods!! 4 moons were visible also, but i have no idea what they are. i cant wait to see it in a month or two when its higher in the sky!!! Jupiter got a full hour of my time before i got cold!!!

All in all I think it was a fantastic nights viewing!, if anyone can recommend any galaxies currently visible that might be a bit clearer than M51 that i might try my hand at tomorrow i would appriciate it.

just a short note on the collomation. i performed this inside with an artifically created star, and i am thrilled with the results. on all stars i have, IMO 99.999% perrfect concentric circles on outside and inside focus. i thoroughly recommend collomation this way!

I'm glad the collimation worked out.
The planets are some of my favourite targets, wait until Mars comes back later on in the year.

Hi

If your looking for galaxies easily visible then you should try the favourites galaxies m81 and m82 which are visible in Ursa major in the same field of view.

Try m101 and m109 both in ursa major although fainter you never know!

Good luck:)

DB

if anyone can recommend any galaxies currently visible that might be a bit clearer than M51 that i might try my hand at tomorrow i would appriciate it

As David Brannigan said above, go for any of the Messier galaxies. They are the easiest to find, considering that Charles Messier used a (bad quality) 4 inch refractor at the time!