I went for the autoalign instead of the quickalign. It still took four tries (if only there was some way to say "don't even bother with the western view), but after Fomalhaut (where I was mostly guessing, it being so dim), Polaris was almost perfect.
I looked at the Moon some more. My, but it's blinding. I staggered around a little afterwards, thinking about how they'd say, "Oh her? She's gots the Moon Eye." I looked at the Pleiades - sparkle, sparkle - and the Hyades - eh. Visibility is around 2.75ish. I tried looking at the Veil Nebula, but no go. Ditto the Andromeda Galaxy.
Or so I thought. I got to wondering how it could possibly be quite close to naked-eye visibility yet not visible in the telescope. My answer was that the moon light was simply that dimming. But I tried again.
Nope, nada. Except. Except. Was that a little fuzz in the lower left corner? Everything else is focused, so why should there be any fuzz. But there was! Was fuzz!
I centered the fuzz and saw, for the first time in my life, another galaxy with my own eye. My Andromeda Eye! It was still very dim, so no way to take a photo, but it was definitely there. A whole other galaxy. Even Picard never went to another galaxy (IIRC).
I added the Barlow but it was too zoomed for the muted sky. Still. Andromeda. On a dark, clear night this should be very exciting.
Saturn is up, but it hasn't cleared the trees enough. I've been staying up with it, but now my neighbour is having some tiff involving - I think - her troubled teen. In the interest of discretion I won't go into details, other than to say one doesn't display pawnable goods at moments like this. Actually, I think the police have arrived. It's bizarre. This is a nice, safe neighbourhood, and this neighbour is very nice, but whoever rents the place seems to have a troubled situation that comes to visit.
Anyway, off to listen.
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