What is your favorite object to view?

[fred8615]

What do you like to look at the most when observing?

[Christopher K.]

The Moon is incomparable, both in terms of practicality and beauty. It has a lot to offer. The eastern edge of the "sea" Mare Crisium can be an aid to discern libration, as that edge gets closer and closer to the limb. Sinus Iridium with its two jutting capes can look spectacular under the correct lighting conditions. Other locations, like the bizarre Reiner Gamma, suggest the Moon still has a number of mysteries to solve.

[mcaramb]

Just read this post... I never knew about the Reiner Gamma until now...cool!

For funs, Murali and I went looking for it last night with his new 8" scope and mount (which is friggin awesome).

We found it and captured it with my little homemade prime focus camera.

http://www.designwizardry.com/astro/reinergamma.jpg

Enjoy!
Mike

[btoman]

Nice

[TrevorM]

Mike, you specified that your camera is homemade as if any of us expected anything of yours NOT to be homemade!

[Christopher K.]

Tuesday it was the Sun; guess why?

I'm actually going to be trying my hand at solar sketching soon, though I don't know if I'll be very adept. My only experience are quick scribbles on the clipped paper of the Sunspotter. I've always been impressed by those who can use different lead hardnesses and apply just the right pressure, using erasing and smearing tricks to get the rendition just right. Oh, well...

[Christopher K.]

What I'd like to view right now is Pluto! It will be very difficult, but I'll see if the Baton Rouge skies are dark enough to allow it. I encourage anyone else who can to do the same. If you don't have the equipment or expertise, get with someone who does. If seeing that faint dot in an eyepiece before seeing the closest pictures of its surface returned by New Horizons Tuesday evening isn't an argument to reduce light pollution, I don't know what is!

[Poppa-Chris]

My favorite? wow! So many to choose from... I'd have to say M42 in Orion is my favorite with M31 in Andromeda as a close second. With Jupiter, Saturn, Mars being next. After that, I like galaxy hunting...

[btoman]

I have to vote for the Moon. There are just so many details to pour over and the more magnification you can get on it, the more small details start to come out. Plus, those details change on a nightly basis as it makes its way through its phases.

The planets and deep sky objects spark my imagination more sometimes, but looking at the Moon through my 10" scope, you almost feel like you're floating over the surface and could reach out and touch it.

[geckgo]

Hard to really pick a favorite, so I chose Nebulae. I'm excited about faint fuzzies since I got sucked back into astronomy. As a kid I would grab the scope and get excited any time I noticed a planet overhead.

Saturn is a gem, and a perfect target for getting started in astrophotography. It never seems to get old.

The great nebula in Orion, I loved the first view through my new dob at low power. It's the first time that I saw definition in it pop. I thought it looked like a wolf's head. Looking forward to it's return, viewed it in Binos this morning.

The Pleidies always look good, and as I work my way through the binocular messier list I'm finding that I like clusters now where I used to think they were boring. In binos they are especially magical. The M7 christmas tree, the butterfly cluster nearby. And about a week ago, M39 added to my list of favorites. Even the hubble pictures can't compare to the ghostly view in cheap binos.

Galaxies are out of reach for my binos and even Andromeda doesn't show me much with the light pollution around the rig, but they are my future targets for scope views. Even as faint smudges there is something magical about them.

So hard to choose.