Observing under bright moon

23 Feb 2021
First clear night all month. First night not freezing cold.
Yesterday: Heavy rain with foggy cloudy night.

Tonight : cool, clear , dry . Bright waxing gibbous moon in Gemini about 4 days before full.
Seeing 3/10 “Puffball” Transparency 10/10

We have two types of poor seeing here.
The first is the ?underwater? seeing where the stars look like at the bottom of a river with the rapid airflow constantly in one direction.
The second is the ?puffball? seeing, where the stars are perfect one second then multiply in size to giant puffballs.
Rarely it?s a mix of both.
Once a year we have good seeing.

Scope : 12.5? f/4.4 efl 1608mm
17mm eyepiece giving 95x

Galaxies in Canis Major : none seen of NGC 2280, 2211, 2212

PN IC 2165 easily visible as just non stellar at 95x. The PN 2438 in M46 barely visible as a grayish circular glow. It?s usually easy.

Open clusters 2353 in Mon and 2482 in Pup, very nice. M41 in CMa splendid us usual. The best is Tau CMa , a cluster of unbelievable beauty. Nearby 29 CMa is an O type supergiant at a great distance, 1900 ly according to SkySafari

In Puppis there is the binocular ?plow? asterism of OR Pup, HD 64616, 64697, and 64455. The tip of the ?plow? marks the location of bright emission nebula NGC 2467. On this moonlit night the usually conspicuous nebula was only barely visible and without detail.

North of 2467 is the bright yellow Xi Puppis, Asmidiske, with its curl of fainter stars resembling the famous crater chain in Clavius, each one smaller than the other.

Far north in Canis Major near the Seagull complex are contrasting stars FN CMa , with its bluish - white B-V of 0.0 (same as Vega) Less than a degree to the SE is deep orange W CMa (B-V 2.7)

About 2 degrees SE of M46 in Puppis is the conspicuous bright orange pair of QY Pup and HR 3027.