A clear night, after two cloudy ones

And boy was it cold tonight. We did have quite the frog chorus, though.

I trialled using the Voice Memo app on the iPhone tonight, to take verbal notes; aside from feeling like a bit of a twitcher for talking to myself, the main problem was having to turn on the phone each time - and the screen being quite bright. I'll give it another go, maybe using a sleeve to cut down on the brightness. Having a hands-free mic (on the earpiece) was certainly an advantage; I hate listening to my own voice, though. ... And listening to it now, it seems like I've managed not to record my notes for the first half of the night - I was turning it off when I thought I was turning it on!

At any rate, things we saw tonight: 

M2
NGC 6752
M4
M8
M20
M21
Jupiter

M2 and M4 were both quite faint, small globular clusters; through the 10mm eyepiece they weren't that spectacular. NGC6752 was much more impressive ; it looked more speckled than fuzzy, with more of an indication that you were actually looking at stars than some amorphous blob. The centre looked denser, of course; the outskirts allowed greater resolution of individual stars.

M8, the Lagoon Nebula, we saw a lot better tonight than last time. Partly this might have been improved seeing conditions, but for me partly it was also because I had looked up a picture of it, to remind myself what it looked like, and it was easier to pick out features when I knew they were there. It actually looked like a lagoon.

M20 and M21 were pretty cool, too, and again easier to see because I knew what I was looking for. M21 - the Trifid Nebula - still doesn't make much sense, at least at this magnification, as a trifid! but it's interesting to look at after the Lagoon. However, I couldn't help but focus more on the two bright stars in it, because they looked like a pair of eyes. M20, an open cluster, was pretty enough. Open clusters aren't that interesting as objects, yet, to me, because... they're just sets of stars.

Jupiter, our treat before going in, was looking stunning again. All four Galilean moons were on the same side as one another, the outer three quite close together with Io alone between them and the disc. I could definitely see two bands, and sometimes thought I could see a third; J thinks he could see a fourth band, too. I'm not that good yet.

Frustratingly, I've found that I've got a bit of a headache after each night's viewing so far. This may be due to a combination of factors, from what I can tell: not re-focussing for my eyes after switching with J; going from glasses to the eye piece; and possibly switching from eye to eye for viewing. Have to give some thought to how to fix this, starting with remembering to re-focus every time.