The wait paid off

[Scooot]

After watching the forecast all evening the weather played ball just after midnight. This was good as it forced me to stay out after the street lights had gone off and it did seem unusually dark.

I did the second star align on Menkar, hadn't looked at this before or very often, it was a nice orange and once centred its white partner was showing near the bottom right of my FOV forming a pleasing wide double.

After checking my alignment on another couple of stars in Cetus I moved straight up to Triangulum to revisit my last bin target M33. Now using the Nagler it came into view quite quickly. The faint grey smudge was framed very nicely between a triangle of stars. The far right were a faint orange double and slightly brighter orange to its right. I used these as a focus for averted vision to see if I could improve the view and it made it perhaps a little brighter. I switched to the 17mm to try it with the UHC. The background had already been very dark but this made it black but also dimmed the galaxy, so rather than a faint grey smudge it now became a faint charcoal smudge. The surrounding stars were now much dimmer with the odd tinge of red so I preferred the unfiltered view.

Whilst the filter was on I moved around to take my first look of the year at the Crab Nebula. It was in a good position so stood out well. I then spotted m42 sticking out to the top side of a nearby Ash Tree. With the UHC at 69x this looked stunning. The nebula spread to both sides of the eyepiece almost filling the FOV. The trapezium wasn't too badly affected by the filter so this was definitely the highlight f the night. I revisited it later when it was higher with an unfiltered view with my 10mm and it was no where near as good, a bit wobbly and not so sharp, so the filter had made a big difference.

The double cluster is one of my favourites. It was close to the Zenith and using the Nagler again it was amazing. I was too lazy to lower my stool so it was a bit awkward, but being so high, on this night I couldn't imagine getting a much better view from any dark site. ( that's what I'm telling myself anyway).

M37 was my favourite of the Auriga clusters, the central orange star drawing my eye whilst the rest of the cluster filled the view.

The clouds were racing in by this time, but as I walked around the back whilst packing up, I caught Jupiter rising in the east.

[cotterless45]

Neat report ! UHC is also a good filter for the planets. Jupiter looked spectacular this morning with a lovely Ganymede transit shadow .

Have a look again the red star between NGC 884 and 869 ( red stars here ) , the chain of stars leading up to Stock 2 and the "star hole " in NGC 869.

Some nights here are spectacular, others , you can count the total number stars on fingers. There is just so much to see at this time of year.

Good to get some observing in without the Moon though. Hoping for more

Clear skies !

Nick.

[Scooot]

Cheers nick,

Forecast is similar tonight, a couple of hours after midnight. Just planning a few different things at the moment.

[Special K]

Great stuff, Scoot, and nice list of targets! I must give the Crab another look as it's been a while. Not a few telescopes found their way outdoors Fri/Sat night so you had lots of company. With the UHC and averted vision, I'm amazed at the faint outlines of M42. It's quite big!