Some great skies & interesting objects

[Stridor]

Great sky last night; could see the Milky Way stretched out  beautifully across the sky.  Took the opportunity to do a bit of observing; especially as I didn`t have to get up for work the next day. I  thought I would try to find a few of the objects mentioned in the current Astro magazines; some of these I did find and some I was unsure if I was on them or not!? Those that I did find..................

                                      

                         IC 1396 in Cepheus : this is a large Emission Nebula spanning 3 degrees of sky. It is apparently a challenging object to detect visually, requiring very dark transparent skies! (It was a very good sky

                                                           but it didn`t reach a full darkness)., so I`m happy I found this one. I sketched 5 stars with an overlying `haze` at 180x mag.

                       

                         NGC7160  in Cepheus: Open Cluster; an attractive knot of bright stars

                         NGC7235 in Cepheus: Open Cluster; a fairly obvious group of about 20 9th - 12th mag stars.

                         NGC6940 in Vulpecula;  A rich Open Cluster of about 125 stars spanning about half a degree.

                         NGC6905 in Delphinus: (Blue Flash Nebula)  I had to spend a bit of time with this one, but yes, a `blue` glow does become apparent.

                         NGC6791 in Lyra: Open Cluster of faint stars against a slightly hazy background.

    After this I did the more usual M31 & M110 (they were high enough now)  and if you are already enjoying the wonders of M13 in Hercules, why not try and have a look at M92 ( it`s almost as impressive) but in a star poor region of Hercules 6 degrees north of Pi / 67 Herculis, the star at the NE corner of the Keystone. Finished off with M14 in Ophiuchus, which I struggled to resolve much detail  & M12 also in Ophiuchus which was better.             Happy viewing all