Scope: C100 EDR 100mm/900mm

Lenses: Celestron Plossl 20, TeleVue Plossl 8, 2xBarlow

Location: Back Garden

Visibility: Good

Light Pollution: High

My wife was feeling ill but it was such a clear night I decided to venture out to the garden, alone, cluctching a list of Messier object coordinates mianly located around Lyra, Hercules and Ophiuchus.

First up was M13 so I pointed the scope at Eta Hercules and checked the declination and right ascention setting circles. They were fine so I moved over to The Great Cluster. What an mindblowing sight; I had been impressed with M3 on a previous night but this was better! I have found globular clusters more impressive than the galaxies I have seen so far. Perhaps galaxies suffer under the light pollution and the aperture of my scope but I think the reason is you can make out so many individual stars, just at the edge of perception. It makes you feel very small!

Managed to track down M92 next, much fainter than M13 but it seemed to have a brighter centre to it and I enjoyed a cup of coffee whilst I watched it slide across the sky.

Took a look at the 'Double Double' (Epsilon Lyra) next (while I was in the neighbourhood). At 45x mag I could only make out the faintest hint that the two stars were in fact doubles but it convinced me I was in the right place. Under 112.5x and 225x I achieved a clean split; seeing seemed to be pretty good the focus wasn't jumping too much.

I next looked at M57. I had forgotten I had put down a nebula in the list, I thought I was on a globular cluster hunt and having never seen any kind of nebula before I was a little confused at what I was seeng. It appeared to be the disk you get around an out of focus star. Then suddenly realisation struck, wow! This was shaping up to be a productive night! M57 was a very faint oval of light and seemed to take magnification to 112.5x fairly well (but not 225x).

After this I run into a little trouble, I had written down the wrong coordinates for the next two items (M5 and IC4665). A cigarette break and inspection of a star chart showed me where IC4665 should be so I found my way over to it manually. A pleasant sight which just spilled out of the field of view of my 20mm plossl. Out of interest I inserted the old 20mm Huygens lens that came with the Bresser for comparison - the field of view was tiny, glad I don't have to use that any more!

After this I failed to locate M14 but managed to track down M10 - just in time, it was right above the roof of my house. The roof line was running across the top of the view finder! Another pleasant globular, suffering a little from light pollution and poor seeing.

Next I moved over to look for a couple of galaxies around the plough. Failed to spot M101 but managed to track down M51. Darker skies and possibly a larger scope are definitely required for this one I think. I could just make out two faint glows at 45x. 112.5x made things a lot worse so I tried 90x using the cheapo barlow lens. This was worse than using the 8mm TeleVue at 112.5x. A new Barlow will definitely improve my viewing pleasure I think!

Finally took a look at Alberio, a beautiful combination of yellow and blue and certainly the most appealing colour double I have tracked down.

A personal best - 5 Messier objects in one night!