• aug 30, 2011 at 11:15 PM - Lyra hardly visible; Vega diminished, faint; one click from culmination
• sept 1, 2011 at 10:40 PM - Vega position high; sky clouded
• sept 5, 2011 at 10:45 PM - jupiter large and bright, dominating the low eastern sky just above the horizon; lyra straight up above, a little past culmination, faint, demoted; big dipper still dominating a large portion of the north-western sky as it did two week ago, but higher; still cannot distinguish ursa minor from vancouver, may be faint due to light pollution, may be due to my poor vision, may just be due to lack of knowledge, experience, or skill on my part..
• sept 6, 2011 at 10:35 PM - confirmed with a look at www.staratlas.com that the bright orb hanging in the eastern sky is jupiter, and it is glorious - i wish i had a pair of binoculars; still couldn't spot ursa minor, but after looking at the star atlas, i discovered that i was looking in the wrong direction after all; lyra faint, did a double-take - but even though, vega is still pretty bright; can finally locate cygnus, in close proximity to lyra, with confidence; ursa major large and looming; cassiopeia small but distinct; what i thought was arcturus was capella, and after studying the star atlas it makes much more sense to me now - it twinkles furiously, like a distant plane, in different colours, although i can only remember the red flashes - just after 11pm and auriga fully comes into view
• sept 10, 2011 at 9:30-10:15 PM - lyra small; wings of cygnus prominent; big dipper low; finally located polaris by following the outer side of the big dipper but rest of ursa minor was too faint to be seen from vancouver; jupiter bright and rising; moon full or at least 90% full (according to astronomytoday september's harvest full moon is sept 12)
• sept 12, 2011 at 8:40 PM - vega bright, lyra faint; polaris visible; arcturus bright and flashing, almost mistook it for an aircraft but watched it long enough to confirm that it wasn't - nice as it hovered above the last strips of sunset sky; @ 7:45 PM - 8:00 PM - september harvest moon a bright pale yellow ball looming above the eastern horizon
• sept 15, 2011 at 9:20 PM - cloudy but fluffy and light with wide breaks revealing the stars behind them: all but one star of cassiopeia visible, clearly recognizable; vega high and bright, rest of lyra clear; moon and jupiter hidden by cloud; western sky and horizon clear of cloud; arcturus mid-high western sky surrounded by cloud but visible and bright (almost mistook it for a plane)
• sept 25, 2011 at 11:00 PM - scattered clouds (more like wisps of smoke); jupiter high in the eastern sky and fantastically glowing - a fine substitute for the late autumn moon; lyra faint but vega still retains its eminent place in the sky; cygnus' wings distinguishable as usual; arcturus opposite jupiter in the western sky small but bright and blinking as it always does; big dipper low in the northwestern sky\
• sept 26/27, 2011 at 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM - mainly overcast but only a low altitude single layer of cloud: break in cloud allowed bright stars to shine through; vega visible though rest of lyra was blocked by a wispy string of cloud; arcturus high and flashing but uncertain because its magnitude seemed to have varied from previous observations in that it looked dimmer than usual; cygnus recognizable; altair recognizable, completing the still prominent summer triangle; observed an unfamiliar star, enif of pegasus, in close proximity to the conspicuous sky asterism
• oct 6/7/8 (don't remember which): sunny with some light cloud, on the skytrain i think it was, sun now sets in the (extreme)southwestern sky, compared to a memory i have from a summer evening when i watched the sun set westnorthwest, almost immediate west
• oct 13, 2011: 8:44 PM: sparse cloud cover: waning gibbous moon looming in the eastern sky fairly high with a BBRRIIGGHHTT planet about two clicks to it's lower left; was skeptical of it being jupiter because the last time i saw jupiter it was in the very low eastern sky and the moon wasn't even present at all - but it was jupiter and it was AMAZING; vega distinguishable but the rest of lyra was incredibly faint; cygnus' wings still taking up a large portion of the upper dome; summer triangle still prominent; recognized so many other constellations, i just couldn't put a name to them :( it's difficult to study the stars when you don't have consistent weather (how funny it is since vancouver is probably the worst place on earth to be an astronomer. we have the most unpredictable weather)
• between oct 13 and oct 28: surprising number of clear nights, or nights of sparse cloud cover. can't tell if jupiter is moving westward or eastward. gotta check that out.
• oct 28, 2011 at 8:30 PM: jupiter high in the eastern sky, a constant bright little orb; vega visible, lyra faint but distinguishable after a little squinting against the light pollution; altair visible; deneb covered by cloud
• nov 13, 2011 at...8:30 PM: jupiter way way way high in the eastern sky, almost right above. never seen jupiter that high at this time of night; cygnus's wings looming and taking a huge portion of the sky above; vega diminished, can hardly make out lyra, setting; gibbous waxing moon, heavily tilted; so many bright stars in the western sky around the moon that i don't know but i wish i knew
• nov 14, 2011 at 5:30 PM: what is that bright and furiously twinkling star in the mid north eastern sky??? (praise the LORD for staratlas.com; the star that i mistook for a plane was capella, the third brightest star in the northern hemisphere, in the constellation of auriga); cassiopeia medium sized, very very high in the eastern sky
• nov 30, 2011 at 9:00 PM: got off the bus and the first object in the sky that i saw was jupiter (jupiter was so high up in the southeastern sky that i really had to crank my head back; very different from the august - or even october - nights i walked home from the skytrain and watched jupiter bobble low above the north-eastern horizon between the highrise apartments) but it was so much more fainter than i was used to, so i let my eyes wander down to the east, to take in the trailing stars. a region in the sky above the southeastern horizon contained a group of stars of brighter magnitude than those around it and after a few prolonged nanoseconds i realised i was looking at rigel, the foot of orion; then my eyes moved further on and fell on the infamous belt, and after that, of course, was betelgeuse. and after witnessing this amazing event, i realised this was the first time i had ever truly observed orion in all its glory, recognising it with a name attached. it was an historic moment for me, actually. in pictures you usually see the belt horizontally, from left to right etc, but at this time, because orion was just rising, the belt was nearly vertical, making it seem as if orion was lying down
• dec 4, 2011 @ 5:30 PM: waxing gibbous moon and jupiter in close proximity, the only two celestial objects visible in the misty, light-polluted evening sky

[!] time stamps and apparent distances are approximate