Star hopping , The Summer Triangle.

[cotterless45]

Great to see the gibbous Moon setting and above in good sky , the Summer Triangle. First over to the south and a stunning view of bright Saturn at x250. The rings are completely open , pole to pole with the Cassini and a few surface details.

Just a bit of star hopping, using the brightest stars by eye.

firstly up to Vega , dropping down to M57 and a lovely clear view of the Ring nebula between Sulafat and Sheliak. The double double is the bright star to the top of the Vega triangle on the right hand side.

Make a right angle from Albireo out to epsilon and you'll hit " The Dumbell Nebula" M27 , quite visible at x30. At x120 with a UHC filter , it lost it's squeezed shape , becoming a barrel with one end really bright. With a 15mm 82 degree SW Panorama ep, it looked stunning.

Between Albireo and M57 you can find the bright globular M56. Again visible at x30. It looks like a bright puff at x50 and over x100 resolves into delicate stars.

Back to Sadr straight out from epsilon at x50 with a UHC filter and the glow of The Eastern Veil. This took in two fields of view at x50, showing a lovely arc with a wider area at one end. The glow feeds into the packed star fields here, a lovely view.always a surprise from the edge of town.

M71 is in the line of Sagitta, easy to hop between Altair and Albireo, just half way and over a bit ! This globular is more delicate , x100 bringing out a dozen bright stars , resolving it well.

Back up to Deneb and out the back to the cluster M39 and down from Sadr for M29 , looking like a shopping trolley.

The Milky Way was quite visible and it was just a delight to trawl along the length of Cygnus . So many stars and clusters at x30 .

The sky was getting light, overhead was the head of Draco, with Cygnus pulling Cepheus. Ursa Major was heading westwards and I had time just to move up under Alkaid to catch both bits of M51.

I was a bit rusty with the Summer Triangle and just hopped around in no sensible order. It was lovely just to be out with a seat , a 10" Dob and a bit of half decent sky. Certainly worth an early kick off,

Nick.

[alan potts]

As always a very good and interesting report from you Nick. I am looking forward to seeing a few more globulars with the new scope, they should be worth the wait. So far I have only got my teeth into M3, it is the only one I can find, the rising side of my sky is not best placed in relation to the house, or should that be the other way around, an there is only so far I can go away from the house before I am in either mud or grass. This end of April has not been so good as the start but I am pleased that at least some of the UK observers  have some clear sky.

Alan

[John]

Great report Nick - some of my favourites in that lot

M27 is a really interesting planetary and, as you say, you can play around with filters to enhance the experience and it's large enough to make a real impact in even a low power eyepiece.

[Mark at Beaufort]

Nice report Nick - its a pity we did not have an observing session together at SGL10

[dick_dangerous]

Love the summer triangle - one of my favourite regions of the sky. Most of the best objects are stunning even in London, although I'm looking forward to potential dark skies at my brother's wedding down in the Dordogne.

DD

[sctb78]

Great report, enjoyed reading it. Thanks very much for sharing [emoji3]

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[MAN or ASTROMAN]

Ah yes,'The Summer Triangle' was one of the first asterisms I learnt to recognise,when I was about ten years old.Still a thrilling part of the sky to observe.The Milky way in Cygnus is pretty stupendous.