Spent some time tonight at Chaunticlair Observatory with the 90mm and my Web cam attempting to image Jupiter. Things went well! The evening's efforts resulted in my first astrophoto of another planet and I'm pretty happy with it. Jupiter showed up with the two big cloud bands along with its four Galilean moons (left to right): Io, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede. That speck in the lower right-hand corner of the picture is a star. The imager was a Philips ToUcam. Separate exposures were made for the planet and its moons --frame grabs, no image stacking-- at about 10:45 p.m. on a night of average seeing from North Royalton, Ohio.
Star party at the CAA observatory near Spencer, Ohio. Got some really nice views of objects through Jerry Kay's 10-inch reflector. At about 100X, I saw M43 (deMairan's Nebula), M42 (Orion Nebula), M41 (Little Beehive -- also seen through my binoculars), M44 (Beehive Cluster), NGC 884 & 869 (Perseus Double Cluster), and Comet Machholtz through the 10-inch, binoculars, and barely with unaided eye. Still not a spectacular comet, but hey... it's a comet.
Went outside our place in North Royalton at about 10:30 PM to look for Comet Machholtz (C2004 Q2). Very cold (20 F) with haze on the horizon, semi-transparency overhead. Used my Nikon binoculars, handheld and was able to see the comet as a large "fuzz ball" through the eyepieces; no tail visible. It was in the constellation Perseus near the star Algol and not too hard to spot. Also enjoyed nice views of the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades.
