Day 48 NGC 4945, dark New South Wales skies.
Monday, March 31, 2014 at 6:41AM A misleading darker morning with the clock beating the Sun after the change to daylight savings yesterday. Of course I would prefer darkness saving time adjustment so it gets dark earlier in the evening so I can get started earlier! At 7 a.m. it was still fairly dark and Ursa Major was to the left of the hill La Pilica and Cassiopeia to the right. Vega was brilliant overhead. Who needs a clock! Looking at the position of the Sun today I see that "Mid-Day" when the Sun is highest in the Sky is about 11 minutes past 2 this afternoon. (Well not after noon actually). The Sun will be about 57 degrees in altitude gradually rising to a maximum of about 77 degrees on June 21st.
Here is Sky and Telescope's Sky Week starting today.
I managed to get some time on remote telescope T13 today and imaged NGC 4945 - quite a spectacular sight against the black New South Wales sky.
Not far from NGC 4945 whilst looking at the star chart for the region I spotted what looked like an unnamed "cluster" - not necessarily an actual cluster in that it may just be a chance line of sight effect - perhaps it does have a name but I couldn't locate it - so I took an image with T13 centred on its RA and DEC. This was the result
I solved the plate - the details are here
Although objects were visible this evening there was suficient intermittent cloud to call a halt to any observing plans.