Telescope Reviews: Puzzling Late-Night Observing Session

Late last night (12/5-6) I got up around 4:30am for a rooftop-deck observing session down at the beach with my NP-101. The half-moon was up high by that time, but under clear skies the transparency and seeing were very good, and the air fairly dry for a marine environment. Among the objects that had me up at that hour was my first seasonal opportunity to gaze into the Canis Major/Puppis region, since down here I have nearly unobstructed horizons, especially to the south, whereas my southern view is too restricted at home in Raleigh for a good look into this region.

WHAT WAS PUZZLING is that using both a 21 Ethos and a 13 Ethos, I quickly and easily found M47, but could not find nearby M46 despite much effort. With no moon in the sky, I have repeatedly and easily found both clusters before by starhopping last winter from my rooftop deck observation spot with the NP101. The other puzzling aspect was that I saw Corvus and Spica up high enough already to the east to give M104 a try, and found it with only a couple of minutes effort, dim and small as it was at just 42x in the 13mm Ethos, not but a few degrees farther to the east side of the half-moon than M47 was to the west of it. I could also recognizably make out the Canis Major cluster (NGC 2362), although the half-moon was bright enough to wash out most of its jewel-like glory and some of its stars. To the north, Ursa Major had risen high enough to give me my first look at M81/M82 in several months. I also got a look at Saturn in my scope with a 4.7E rising over the ocean with Venus just clearing the horizon, but it was too low for more than a fairly "soft" view. In an earlier observing session that night, around 10pm I starhopped to Uranus, which is a bit tricky to pick out with a 17E used as my "finder" eyepiece, because at 32x its planetary disc is only incrementally distinguishable from the apparent size of brighter stars and its pale cream-tinged turquoise color isn't so immediately distinguishable from blue or paler yellow stars at that magnification. I was going to try for Neptune as well, but its position at that time was just far enough west that the needed guide stars to hop to it were becoming naked-eye obscured by the of the upper reaches of the Myrtle Beach light dome, and so I decided to leave that for another night.

Nevertheless, I'm STILL PUZZLED why M46, one of my favorite clusters in the whole celestial sky in any season, was so elusive, even with the half-moon in the sky, when it really wasn't all that tough to find M104.