Mira

Mira (Omicron Ceti) is approaching it's maximum. It is a long-period pulsating variable with a period of 331.96 days. I observed it yesterday through binoculars but it was easily visible with the naked eye. The AAVSO website gives its present magnitude at around 3.5. I also caught my first glimpse of Saturn for this season just after midnight as it rose in the Easten sky in Leo, close to the border with Virgo.

Vesta

After a hiatus in my observational astronomy, last night I tried out my new Celestron Skymaster 15x70 binoculars on an observation of the asteroid Vesta. At this time, this asteroid is well placed close to the star Alpha Piscium.

I downloaded a very good chart from the Sky & Telescope website. The asteroid was quickly found in the expected position, almost equidistant between the stars TYC0040-01162-1, TYC0041-01221-1 and TYC0041-01255-1 on the border between Pisces and Cetus. I will now check tonight if there was any movement in the object I observed that would confirm that it is the asteroid.

Otherwise I tried the binoculars on some open clusters like M35, M41, M36, M37, M38 and the Pleiades. I also observed the Perseus Double Cluster, the Orion Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy and was quite pleased to find and observe Hind's Crimson star, R Leporis.

Altogether, I am quite pleased with the performance of my new binoculars.