Now that the moon is approaching the new moon phase, the clouds are rolling in. I had a few good nights but for the next few days at least, it does not look good. As far as birding goes, it is very slow. A few new birds have appeared, indicating some migration. Two dowitchers at the pond and a couple of Greater Yellowlegs, along with a Ring-billed Gull were the most exciting birds I’ve seen. Still not warm enough to get the herps out, except for the most common ones I’ve seen all winter.
M65, another one of the Leo Triplets. It has crossed my mind to make a mosaic of all three using images taken with the C8. I’ll see how that goes. M100, a galaxy in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. NGC 4312 is in the upper right. The Needle Galaxy, NGC 4565, in the constellation Coma Berenices. IC3571 is the small bluish area just to the left of the galaxy, in Stellarium it is called an “object of unknown nature”. Other places I’ve looked describe it as a dwarf galaxy. The Needle is one of my favorite galaxies, it is large and bright, very photogenic. This image is about 2 hours of exposure. M46, an open star cluster near Orion. There is a small planetary nebula in the cluster, NGC 2438, but it is not actually associated with it. There are around 500 stars in this 250,000,000 year old cluster. It can be easily seen in binoculars.
