Geminid Meteor Shower (Part I)

I got out about 5:30 this morning... for close to an hour of frozen meteor watching. Without keeping any strict counts, I'd say they were coming about one per minute. Factor in that my observing location only showed me half the sky... and its probably safe to say were were near 100 meteors per hour. Not too shabby.
I was lucky enough to get a handful of really bright meteors... including one especially bright one that caught my eye while driving home last night. That was probably the brightest of them all (and it was warm in the car ;)
Temps this morning were in the teens... with slight to moderate passing clouds.
I don't know if there's some law of physics which dictates that meteors will somehow go around the area you're pointing your camera at, but... something was certainly at play.
We'll try again tonight... when the real peak is expected to hit.
If all goes well, I'll also snag a shot of Comet Machholz as well.

Comet Machholz

We had a bunch of friends over last night... so I didn't get to take advantage of the beautiful moonless skies overhead. Well... I didn't get to completely take advantage of them.
I got out for a few minutes with my 10x50 bins and took my first quick peek of Comet Machholz. It was a very easy find just below and to the right of Orion.
In the binoculars, Machholz was a large, fuzzy object... without any real definition. I hope to get out tomorrow night with a scope or two. One for viewing... and one for imaging. The current weather forecast looks like it should cooperate.
APA

Clear Skies & Deep Views

We didn't expect clear skies, but.. they showed up :-)
For several hours, my buddy Brian and I scanned the night sky for some early winter treats. In the 2+ hours that we were out we managed to visit a slew of Messier's... including M31, The Andromeda Galaxy and M42, The Orion Nebula. We also hit a couple of NGC's... including (one of my favorites) The Double Cluster in Perseus. Sweet!