The air was cool and relatively dry with little or no wind. Seeing was fairly good.
Started with Saturn with 25mm then switched to 18mm ortho with 2x barlow. Titan and two smaller moons Dione and Rhea clearly visible to the left side, no others. Thin sliver of ring shadow visible across the face of Saturn and planet’s shadow visible on left side of rings. Cassini division visible during moments of better seeing. Cloud band with slight contrast visible in lower half, as if completing the oval ring shape.
NGC3242 was next, several degrees east of Alphard. Color was very faint and the nebula boundary indistinct, although sometimes with seeing the brighter inner oval outline was visible.
Next came M44, the Beehive cluster, which is too large to view in its entirety in my 32mm. I was able to pick out a slight yellow or orange hue for one star, but the color contrast is slight. Eyepiece view is better than online photos, which tend to be over-exposed so that the cluster stars form large saturated circles.
Split Algieba (γ Leonis) with 12.5mm. Very close pair with little or no color distinction.
Last target was M3, a globular cluster in Canes Venatici toward Arcturus. Individual stars were very hard to resolve and seemed to appear and disappear rapidly and in mass, producing a subtle sparkling effect.
