Still no Comet Hartley, but Double Cluster came out to play!

Greetings, beginning astronomers and other assorted stargazers!

Got my scope set up early tonight, as it looks like the dreaded cloud cover will descend tomorrow and then it's just downhill from there--rain through the weekend. Sigh. So I read that the ever-elusive Comet Hartley was supposed to be in the vicinity of Ruchba (Isn't that a great name?), the star that is the lower point of Cassiopeia's "W." I scanned the skies in that area with my binocs, but there was nada that I'd call a comet.

Finally gave up and went looking for the "Double Cluster"--two star clusters in the constellation Perseus. I wanted to locate them 1) because I thought they'd be pretty to look at, and 2) so I could use them to find that darned comet, which is supposed to be only half a degree from them in a night or two. So I got out my wonderful book, Left Turn at Orion, and followed the directions for finding the double cluster. First I found the middle star of the "W," called Gamma Cassiopeia. Then I assessed the distance from that star to Ruchba and called it one "step." Then I followed those two stars in a line, straight down, the length of two "steps." So now I was looking at the sky two steps below Ruchba. I pointed my scope generally at that spot.

Wasn't sure what star clusters would look like in my small scope, but I'm pretty sure I found them (NGC 869 and NGC 884). They are tight groupings of stars that have a vague fuzziness about them, probably because there are so many more in that grouping that we can't see. As the book notes, it's a "patch of grainy light, the light from stars too faint and close together to be resolved [separated] individually." Yeah, that's what I meant to say.

Then I left my little double cluster and headed back over to M31, Andromeda Galaxy, that I spotted the other night (see my previous post). There she was, in all her blobby splendor! I tried using my 6mm eyepiece this time, for a closer view, and though it was much dimmer, I could see it a bit better. I just read that the light we see from M31 left that galaxy over 2 million years ago. That blows my little mind!!

I am so hungry for a bigger scope now... like an 8-inch. Don't think I could manage a 10-inch Dobsonian. Even the 8-inch is 41 pounds, and I'm a weakling. But I'm gonna save up for one. At the time I got interested in astronomy, I mainly wanted a lightweight scope I could carry easily, see the planets with, and do some basic photography, especially of the moon. But now I find I just want better views of nebulae and galaxies. When Orion becomes visible in the next few weeks, I'm so gonna want to view the Orion nebula... I hope it puts on a good show, even in my little scope. Funny how we're never content with what we have. But it was still a pretty cool night, getting to see that double cluster. Now if I could just find Hartley... Sigh.