I was out early this morning around 5AM and the skies had cleared up nicely. I had planned on a quick look around with binoculars but when I looked at Mars I realized that not only was it in Cancer – it was in M44, The Beehive. My grab-and-go scope is an old AT72ED on an alt/az mount and a TV Telepod tripod. The scope sits in a beat up case but mechanically and optically the telescope is wonderful. It takes less than 5 minutes to set up and in no time I was taking in Mars in M44. They were framed beautifully in a 19mm Panoptic’s almost 3 deg FOV and I took the following image with an iPhone. Not too bad for handheld at the eyepiece. 🙂

You can tell I’m no imaging pro – M44 is in the upper left. You can also see clouds starting to move in.

I had enough time to take a look at Jupiter before things closed up.

I was back inside making coffee by 5:30AM. A great way to start the morning.