As I was starting so early in the evening, Sun had only set about 45 minutes ago, the western sky was still in twilight! I tried for Saturn but that would set at 18:40, too close to the horizon and probably be lost in the twilight sky? Mercury I noticed in the sky without optical aid, even found it while driving to this site. Even though it was only 3 ° above the horizon coming in with a magnitude (Mag) -2.7, it would be hard to miss the inner most planet and the one I have seen the less of. I must have try looking for Neptune for a good 20 minutes using telescope and binoculars but no luck, does not help being mag 7.9 in a bright sky!
Next target was Uranus, a pale green dot in the sky coming in with a Mag of 5.7, next target was Jupiter, shining at mag -2.4, and it could not be missed! Saw the two main weather belts with Io (from Jupiter) and Europa to the east and Ganymede and Callisto to the west, light time was 41.25 minutes. I did forget about Venus but would come back to this planet later on once I noticed I had missed it! With the planets now out of the way, I turned my attention to some winter delights, starting with Messier (M) 42 and 43, as usual the trapezium stars were good and the dust lanes bright.
To the east and slightly south is M 46, a large open cluster (OC) with a lot of dim stars within the group. This OC has a Planetary nebula within it (line of sight only) but I could not make it out, unfortunately. Not far away is M 47 another large and loose OC but not as many stars as M 46 but had some bright stars in the group. M 48, is another large, sparse and loose OC. M 50 is about a third of the way from Sirius to Procyon, this OC is small with some dim stars in it.