Night Sky Observation 2

I observed the night sky again tonight,7th Dec., at around 8:30. There was no moon today, and maybe because of that, I saw a lot more stars today. I didn't really see any planets, it was hard to distinguish because the moon wasn't out. I found a very bright star in the middle of the sky, in an unknown constellation. I looked it up on the star chart, and it was this star called "Capella", which was part of this constellation called "Auriga". Capella is the 6th brightest star in the night sky! I also found the big dipper, and followed it to find the North Star. I also tried to look for other constellations, but it was hard to see from where I was observing (my balcony).
Tomorrow I'd like to find Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky!
Marie

Night Sky Diary Observation 1!

So, this is my first observation of the night sky, on 5/12/09 (it took some time building the telescope). I had a hard time looking through the telescope, because it was blurry without the barlow lenses but very small with them. I just stuck with the normal lenses and began looking through the night sky. I couldn't really see so many stars, because I live in Byaasen, and the lights from downtown probably drowned some of them out. But I could see the moon, all big and yellow, pretty close to the equator, even though it was 9 at night. It was blurry, and clouds were covering it. However, I could see the craters of the moon clearly. Also, I saw this shining star close to it, a little above the moon. It was very visible though so close to the moon, and it was reddish in color, so I'm guessing that it was Mars. It wasn't Venus, though that's also very bright, because it was too late into the night to see it. I couldn't see any other planets, or didn't notice them. I saw a few stars too, some from Orion's belt.
I observed this around 9:00-9:20.