2024-12-05

• Condition: VG5
• Location: Home, Spearfish: 44.49, -103.87

Nice relaxing night for gazing. Unexpectedly, Gwen joined me in the backyard during this session saying “Dad, you’re turning me into a nerd!”

06:30PM

• Target: Stock 23, Pazmino’s Cluster
• Const: Camelopardalis
• RaDec: 03h16m +60.06
• Type: Open Cluster
• Scope: AT102ED
• Setting: 55x
• Class: I 2 m

Very peaceful cluster. Easily seen in the finder scope before I was even centered on the target. The cluster appears to have an observable concentration from the surrounding star field.

06:43PM

• Target: NGC 1502
• Const: Camelopardalis
• RaDec: 04h07m +62.19
• Type: Open Cluster
• Scope: AT102ED
• Setting: 55x
• Class: II 1 p

Beautiful, small, but easily observable cluster. My field atlas had a target to the NW tagged as “Kemble’s Cascade”. It turns out this is an asterism of a straight line of brighter stars which extends NW from NGC 1502. At 55x, I could not see the entire “cascade” in my eye piece (I’m marking this target for a revisit once I get a wider eyepiece). NGC 1502 is the cluster of stars near the bottom of the sketch. I was able to fit about 1/3 to ½ of the cascade in the FoV for the sketch.