M13 Our first globular

[Fypunky]

Its been a while since I have been on the forum and stargazing to be honest, normally those lovely clear skies have also had lovely warm days and nights witch tends to come with BBQ's and lots of falling down juice!

However now the nights are drawing in and we decided the other night to have a real good session and I had several targets planned, the first would be our first globular cluster and we decided on M13, I have been waiting on this for some time now.

There was a few clouds passing by but large windows between them, we found Vega a drifted over and there it was, but not what I expected! Try as hard as I could, I could not resolve the stars, it was more like a cloud of stars, another one of those hubble moments as I now call them, perhaps expecting a little more than we do, still the sight was good and I will be re-visiting soon as we get clear skies again, we may have a trip to a dark site and see if it resolves any better there.

That night we viewed M13, M92 and M15, M31 and just make out through the LP M81+M82. 

We have the bug back now these nights are getting darker/ sooner.

Aidy

[swamp thing]

Hi Aidy

Yeah globs are much improved by a dark sky buddy as are pretty much all DSO's. What size aperture are you using. I've found in my 4.5" scope at a dark sky site M13 starts to appear granular. By 6" you can start seeing individual stars out in the outer regions.

By 10" your pretty much resolving it in its entirety.

[Fypunky]

Our scope is 5 (130). Will try again at a dark site and see how much improvement we get. many thanks.

[cotterless45]

Just the hammer ! Nothing beats a dark sky ,

Nick.

[Special K]

You can also try shrouding your eye as much as possible. I've had best results with M13 by pulling the hood down to stop any stray light. This one is so subtle, but really starts to yield after a few minutes of trying.