Star party targets

I am participating in a star party at my kids' school on Nov 14th. The school is in a heavily light polluted area (red zone). Nevertheless there should be plenty of good showpiece objects visible at this time of year from the Bay Area. I am looking forward to showing the following to the kids:

• Jupiter - always a great one for star parties
• Uranus - surprisingly easy target, even under light pollution
• Albiero - probably the most beautiful double star, and a good target for discussing double stars and star evolution
• Ring nebula - nice planetary nebula target
• Double cluster - great open cluster target. Fits nicely into the 38mm eyepiece in my CPC 1100
• Owl cluster - fun one for the kids (although the Owl is inverted ...)
• M13 - one of my personal favorites. Should still be visible low in the sky

I'll post back with the "ooh/aah" feedback after the star party.

First view of Uranus

Uranus was another first (for me) view in the same observing session that I mentioned below. Despite the fact that Uranus is almost 1.7 billion miles away, the planet is actually an easy target and clearly resolves as a disc.

This gas giant appears blue/green due to the methane in its atmosphere. The color was very clear, even in my light polluted skies. I got the best view at 215x using the 13mm Ethos eyepiece in my CPC 1100. Unlike Jupiter or Saturn, no surface details are visible which isn't surprising given the distance.

The view at the eyepiece was very similar to the picture here.

First view of Andromeda

It is now getting late enough in the year that the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is visible in Bay Area skies at a reasonable time, and also not obscured by trees in my backyard. The constellation of Cassiopeia is prominent in the sky around 7pm and an easy sign-post to M31.

I took my first look at M31 a couple of nights ago through my lowest power eyepiece (Q70 38mm), which gives 73x in the CPC 1100. M31 is a very large object and so requires low power. Unfortunately this means that the background sky glow from light pollution is more pronounced - although not too bad on M31 as the object is so bright.

At 2.5 million light years, M31 is the the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and contains almost 1 trillion stars. This galaxy will collide with ours in about 2.5 billion years. Andromeda has two "satellite" galaxies - M32 and M101. I was able to see both of these also.

The view at the eyepiece was very similar to the picture below - although the dark dust lanes weren't as pronounced.