I have had no opportunity thus far in the new year for any extended viewing. This night is the first, April 12, 2019.

From my dacha in these woods south of Oakwood, Illinois.

The sky was prophesied to be clear of clouds, with better than average transparency. Unfortunately the seeing was supposed to be very poor. It seemed like a contradiction. I loaded up anyway and drove out of the woods to my old roadside viewing site. I did not find it necessary to stone the prophet.

I used the LXD 75 mount with my ES127FCD100 refractor. I had my EP case loaded but only used three EP during my outing.
I am finding that my TV22 Panoptic has become a favored EP for beginning an outing. Tonight I also called on the Pentax 7mm XW for some detail on the moon and my ES35mm 2" for the wider view on the Seven Sisters, M45.

By the book it was not a sky that would encourage much effort but I was willing to give it a try anyway, although naked eye the stars visible were not much more than mag 4.5 to 5 as I judged it. But true to the report there were no clouds.

The list of attempted targets that bore no fruit were:
M79 nothing
M53 nothing
M68 nothing
M67 nothing.
The moon and whatever other that was affecting the seeing made these unrecognizable to me.


M42 nice dusty cloud, but washed out in the moonlight.

M44 revealed nicely with mostly a dominant star promenade.

M48 was also nice, more or less the same as M44.

M45 was rather scant of the dimmer stars. On this one I pulled out my ES35mm to get the entire view. The sisters were rather dull, and up-side-down...just pin point stars without a whisper of nebulosity. Even the colors in these otherwise cobalt lusters were mere undifferentiated points of whitish light.

M93 was a pleasant surprise revealing as a nice rather dense cluster which I don't think I have appreciated as much in prior viewings.
I was catching the dense core of fainter stars.

M46 I could barely see

I tried for Caldwell 25 but there was never really a chance for this one.

M47 at dusk revealed a beautiful cluster of its brightest stars to the count of about 56. It was not dark yet. I dwelled here a while. I should have gone back to this one when the "darkness" became full but I got sidetracked. In fact darkness never really came because the moon, though only a precise half, was brilliantly scattering its gathered sunlight throughout the sky creating a glow subsuming in itself any lesser light.

And last, and not least, I aimed my palantir toward that perfect 1/2 Moon. It was crispy and crinkly along the terminator and I enjoyed this view of the mountain ranges Apenninus and Caucasus with their crags and valleys, as well as the dense pocking of craters from Ptolemeaus to Moretus further north. I took a few snaps of this old favorite that I have come to alternately love and hate.

I tried galaxies knowing it would most likely be futilely. I was correct.

I had gotten out by 7:15 pm and by midnight I was worn out and beginning to chill

My neighbor and his wife came down the road on their way home about 10:30 and looked at the moon with me. By then I couldn't even show them M42 as it had dropped low enough to be pretty muddy and not very interesting. Seeing is seeing, or not seeing as the case may be.

Not much else to report really, but that I got out and enjoyed a few hours of catharsis under the stars.

Peace to you all.