I’ve got clear skies where I’m at, and I’m ready to try and cross some things off my observation list.

Some targets I’m planning on trying to hit:

• M79 (this one’s been a real PITA, tried about five times and finally just saw a fuzzy little cloud last time I looked)
• NGC 2419: I think this one’s also going to be a huge PITA to starhop to, but I’m up to the challenge.
• Rosette Nebula
• M108
• M97: M108 and M97 seem like they shouldn’t be too hard to starhop to, I guess we’ll find out.
• M105: tried to find the Leo triplet once or twice before and got nowhere, but I was on more of a time crunch. I’m hoping with a slower pace and Leo being higher in the sky, I’ll be able to pin it down.
• I always like to peek at Jupiter, and I’ll probably snag a look at Trapezium while I can.

Known Conditions:

• 12" 1520mm f/5 manual dob
• low mag wide aperture binoculars
• predicted clear skies
• ClearDarkSky says Bortle 6 but I think it’s closer to 5. In either case, not great, but I’ve still managed to catch some faint fuzzies from here.
• I’m going to be using a combination of prepping with Stellarium and a star chart to try and augment my star-hopping. I’ll be using an 8x50 RACI to jump from bright naked-eye targets to less visible ones, and then a 2x Barlow/30mm wide field eyepiece to nudge onto target.

Anybody else planning any observing? What’s your list look like?