Omissions from my 17 January Posting

I intentionally made yesterday's posting brief; but I may have made it too brief! I intentionally omitted my full descriptions of all 51 observed objects; but I also omitted the following:

Zodiacal Light: At 2:00 U.T. the Zodiacal Light was visible from my western horizon all the way up through Andromeda -- on or near my south meridian.

Barnard's Loop: I didn't write it down at the time, nor did I consult a chart at the time; but I noted the Milky Way passing along the left (east) side of Orion. Furthermore, I noted a distinct gap to the right of the main body of the Milky Way, followed by a narrower arc of "Milky Way". Only this arc might not have been part of the Milky Way at all. It might have been Barnard's Loop -- a large arc of nebulosity in the same general area of sky. I've been unable to determine for certain (checking atlases and photos today) if the arc I saw was a part of the Milky Way or if it was Barnard's Loop. At the time I didn't bother training the binoculars on the arc. Hopefully a second observation will clear this up for me. My sky might be clear tonight . . .

Enhanced Night Vision? Two nights ago (17 January U.T.) deepsky objects looked unusually good. I saw the California Nebula with ease. Normally one would conclude that this would be due to improved sky transparency; but I specifically checked my NELM on that night. It was no better than on a typical, dark night. Furthermore, there was even an aurora on that night; though it wasn't particularly bright, nor did it cover a large area of sky.

Approximately 36 hours prior to the night observations I had spent a few minutes looking for Comet McNaught (near the Sun, which was blocked from view) in the daytime sky. I had used binoculars for the search. Might this have resulted in sensitized eyes some 36 hours later? I can recall one similar 'coincidence' several years ago. It's enough to raise my suspicions.

Additional observations and/or experimentation may be necessary to get to the bottom of this mystery.

My Final Omission: This one was intentionally omitted; but upon further reflection I see no good reason not to provide at least some details. During my binocular observations, at one point approximately 6 aircraft flew over within a short period of time. It's uncommon to see any aircraft fly over my location, let alone 6 at once! All were headed in the same direction. All were silent (I was wearing a sheepskin hat with earflaps down). All had a bright (one might even say 'brilliant') white strobe light. I trained the 20x80 binoculars on one of the nearer aircraft. Based upon a small number of much dimmer lights, the aircraft proved to be either nearer or larger than I had anticipated. The body of the aircraft was all but invisible -- most likely black. From the rear, the exiting exhaust looked little brighter than a typical nebula, but bright enough to show up as a somewhat faint, blue-white color. It was not noticeable to the unaided eye (I didn't have my corrective glasses on).

One never knows what one might see from the middle of nowhere on a clear, dark night!