DSO hunting under full Moon

[YKSE]

Just as this winter and spring weather have been, most clear nights around the full Moon. Since the galaxy season is now and last only a month before the white summer night taking over, I took C8 out both on Thursday and Friday nights.

The actually darkness under full Moon was better than I had expected, in Zenith, SQM showed 18.2-18.3 (NELM 4.1), comparing to moonless nights 18.8(NELM 4.6), a drop of half magnitude. M13 and M92 were visible in 8x50 finder. It was much worse closer to the full Moon, the drop was about 1,3 magnitude in lower Leo area on Friday .e.g. As acey mentioned here, it seems that reflection lights made it looked worse in surroundings, a black jacket over my head and focuser made eyepieces clearly free from reflections.

Galaxies NGC 4150 and 4203 in Coma Berenices were readily seen before some clouds rolled into the area, slewing to globular 6229 in Hercules, easily seen in the edge of finder eyepiece, Slewing to 6207, M13 popped in the FOV! after checking the chart and some good minutes with averted vision bagged this faint galaxy. stellar sized nebula 6210(20") was bright, just needed to go up in mag for size or using UHC/OIII for brightness constrast.

6426 was an easy globular in Ophiuchus, galaxies in Ursa Major were more difficult, 4051,4605 and 4036 were easier in averted vision, more minutes and patient needed for 4041 and 5322.

Forecast seems to promise more chances for the DSO hunting 

Clear sky

[cotterless45]

Neat ! We are forced to observe under huge lunar brilliance. This is due to the few nights of clear sky, except around the gibbous Moon. It can be sufficiently dark in the opposite area of the sky, well caught !

Nick.