While observing the Messiers on Friday night I also observed many "side
dish" objects nearby. Mark Wagner has been writing a monthly "Deep Sky"
column for the SJAA Ephemeris for a while now. For those of you who are
not SJAA members, don't fret, the newsletter "The Ephemeris" has always
been available online for all to see. There are other regular monthly
columns written by some of the bay areas finest, and I usually aim my
telescope at these objects each month, too. Dave North's "Mooning" and
Akkana Peck's "Shallow Sky" are projects worth doing each month.
But back to Marks' column. I "do" his article every month. Yes, I
have seen the objects before, but it is always fun to have a project,
and Mark's are always excellent. Since I edit Mark's article - only if
necessary which it hardly every needs except when he occasionally mixes
up north and south -) - I have already "done" the article on my
computer using Sky Map Pro, so I might as well do it for real too.
Anyway, his Messier Marathon side dishes
http://ephemeris.sjaa.net/0303/c.html was part of my Messier Marathon
observing night project. His April article "So little time, so much to
see" http://ephemeris.sjaa.net/0304/e.html is one you might like to do
next observing session. But his Messier Side Dishes are observable all
year so print it out and tuck it into your observing kit, and check back
each month for more interesting projects.
I highly recommend reading observing articles like Mark's in the
Ephemeris and also mining the observing reports in the TAC observing
report archives http://observers.org/reports/reports.htm for observing
night projects if you want some good ideas. If you go back in the
Ephemeris for 2002 http://ephemeris.sjaa.net/eph02.html Michael
Dajewski has an article on observing Markarian's Chain in the May 2002
issue, something many people are interesting in trying right now.
Jane, SJAA "Ephemeris" co-editor
http://ephemeris.sjaa.net/
-- Jane Houston Jones San Rafael, CA jane@No-Spam http://www.whiteoaks.com