Evening of Saturday, September 28, 2002 The sky was excellent tonight! It was clear, dark, and moonless. I was not prepared to take out the telescope but I did look around a bit with my 7x50 binoculars. I spent time in particular scanning over Per and Cas. I saw many objects. In Per both M-34 on the west side of the constellation and NGC-1528 on the east side make excellent binocular objects. I particularly liked the view of NGC-1528. I also studied the area around Alpha Per. There are many bright stars in this vicinity that make it nearly as interesting as the Pleiades cluster (which was also just above the horizon). While this area is not normally marked as a cluster on the charts, it certainly looks like one in wide field binoculars or with the naked eye. The double cluster was quite compact looking in the 7x50s but also very rich. Even to the naked eye it stood out nicely as two fuzzy balls. It seems like an impressive object in all instruments! North of the double cluster is an obvious and interesting looking association of stars that might be marked as Mel-15 on SkyAtlas 2000. The cluster-like nature of the grouping seems clear in the binoculars although it is a large object and not very condensed. I imagine it would not look nearly as interesting in a telescope. In Cas I saw what I later identified on the atlas as NGC-663. It was a surprisingly interesting object in the binoculars: round, partially resolved, clearly more concentrated than the star background. The cluster NGC-752 in And (most easily found from Tri) is an impressive object in the binoculars. It is rich, partially resolved, and very interesting. It isn't a perfectly round cluster and it seems to have stars spread over an unusually wide range of brightnesses. It was also faintly visible to the naked eye tonight. M-33 in Tri was beautifully visible in the binoculars. I attempted to locate it with the naked eye but I didn't have any luck this evening. Cyg was on zenith and the North American Nebula was *clearly* visible in the binoculars. It was one of the more impressive views of that object that I've seen. The distinctive outline of the nebula was easy to discern. I was only outside for about 20 to 25 minutes, but despite its short length, it was a most enjoyable session. Peter