After receiving a phone call from Micheal, I hightailed it to LaVerkin, UT Thursday night when I heard that Jim Van Buskirk was setting up his 20" StarMaster telescope. He first pointed the telescope to NGC 7331. This large bright spiral galaxy showed up well in the 20" and I saw several campanion galaxies with the 31 Nagler. Jim then found Stephan's Quintet nearby using one of his higher power Naglers. I saw all 5 galaxies in this Hickson galaxy group. Jim then turned the telescope towards Gemini. After we looked at the bright Eskimo nebula, I suggested we try Abell 21, The Medusa Nebula. This one was not on his Sky Commander digital setting circles, so we had to switch to the RA DEC function. After slewing with the hand paddle, this horseshoe-like nebula came into view. This is one of the brighter Abell objects and it really showed up well with the 20" StarMaster. I think this nebula is about 400" so it is pretty large. After that we moved the scope north to the faint double-lobed planetary NGC 2371/2. It looked similar to M76 but fainter. Planetaries are a joy to view with this scope. The next object I viewed was NGC 2261, Hubble's Variable nebula. This is a must-see object in the constellation Monoceres. It is comet shaped with a tail that widens. It is a very interesting object to view and one of my favorites of the winter sky. I then asked if we could try Abell 12 near Mu Orionis. I showed JIm where Mu was and we centered Mu in a lower power Nagler but I couldn't see anything. We then switch to a 16 Nagler with an OIII filter. I saw a circular planetary in the lower right corner out from the star. This circular planetary is hard to see because of the glare from the star but it was definitely there. High power is a must for Abell 12. Jim then put in the bino-viewer with 24mm Panoptics and turned the telescope to the Orion Nebula. Words cannot describe the beauty of Orion Nebula through a bino-viewer. It has to be experienced. I've never seen a better view in my life! We saw the "e" star in the Trapzium popping in and out. Later in the in the evening when the seeing had cleaned up we saw the "f "star at the 12 o'clock position. I thought the Orion Nebula was blue through my 15" Obsession, but it seemed much brighter and bluer through the 20" StarMaster. Aperature has it's advantages here. After viewing the Orion Nebula, Jim viewed a couple of galaxies in Camelopardalis. NGC 1569 is an interesting elongated galaxy, otherwise know as Arp210. NGC 1961, also known as Arp 184, is a pretty spiral galaxy, a SAB type galaxy. We then viewed M81 and M82. I could see dark mottling in M82 and I could see why astromers call it a star-burst galaxy. The spiral arms of M81 were pretty in the 20". I never get tired of viewing these bright galaxies. I then suggested to Jim that he try NGC 2683 in Lynx. This is a bright 10th mag Sb type spiral galaxy. It looks like a cigar that bulges in the middle. It is similar to NGC 3115 in Sextans. This is the first time I've done some deepsky observing in January. The temperatures were bearable in the low-forties and I forgot how much the winter milky way had to offer. I hope to go back to Jim's house next week and do some more observing. It was an evening I will not forget soon. Debbie