Hey all,

So while waiting for my Skyliner 200p to arrive after it’s many, many delays, I could see a good patch of clear skies coming my way – typical I thought. After feeling that I had outgrown them, I decided to try out my Revelation binoculars for another go and wow, just wow!

I had completely forgotten how great these 15x70’s are. When I started zooming around the heavens, the giant field of view and really easy to use camcorder tripod made finding and looking at targets an absolute dream. One other pleasure was to view these objects the right way round and exactly how the naked eye (and stellarium + books!) shows them.

I could only observe from home, which is somewhat light polluted but I cannot quite believe how much I accomplished! This is the first time I have observed with the aim to actually ‘cross off’ some messier targets and oh my did I get somewhere!

I started with some targets I already knew and had observed before.

M1 crab nebula in Taurus – very dim in my light polluted garden but still recognisable, obvious oval shape.

M31 Andromeda galaxy – On its way out for another season but I just caught its giant expanse in the sky.

M42 Orion nebula and running man – Targets just before they also cleared off below the horizon, lovely shapes in the peripheral view.

NGC 1432 The Pleiades (seven sisters) – Jaw dropping in binoculars, the sharp pins of blue light were a gorgeous sight in binoculars, especially since it was optically the same way round as the naked eye. After viewing this, I realised with the binoculars I should concentrated on finding and getting to know the messier objects that were globular and open clusters. I can leave the fuzzy deep sky objects for when my dobsonian arrives.

M36, M37 + M38 Clusters in Auriga – Situated perfectly from my garden I viewed these and tried to make comparisons in between them. M37 (the furthest left in the constellation) was the easiest for me to find and then simply panning right from it enabled me to discover M36 and M38.

M35 in Gemini – Easily found from the leg of one of the twins, quite bold when I stumbled across it. I tried to find the cone nebula after it but failed and thought I would be better off trying with the dob.

M67 in cancer – My first time learning and discovering cancer, it’s not a bright constellation, at least not from my situation. There seemed to be a bright collection within the cluster, towards the top left.

M44 Praesepe beehive in Cancer – Holey moley! This was my first time viewing what I had heard many others mention before this. It was a jaw dropping sight for the eyes, just as good as the seven sisters, I cannot believe I hadn’t noticed it before!

M13 in Hercules – I turned my attention to trying to view some globular clusters for the first time. Crikey when I found it I couldn’t believe how bright it was! The shape was also really impressive to the eye, I can fully recommend this to new observers!

M3 cluster above Arcturus – A very easy to find globular being straight up from the very bright star, Arcturus. Not as bright as M13 for me, I later checked on stellarium and it is nice to have that confirmed by the software.

I was starting to get cold so I thought I would try a few harder subjects that I had heard a lot about and then call it a night.

I spent some time learning Leo as it was another constellation I didn’t have a clue about. I had seen many images on the forum featuring the Leo ‘triplet’ of galaxies so decided to give them a go to find. With the light pollution around me it was possible that I could just see M66 (the brightest). But the other two (M65 + NGC 3628) within the field of view of my binoculars evaded me completely.

Finally, I had also heard a lot about the Bodes pair of nebula (M81 + M82). Located roughly between Ursa major and minor, finding them wasn’t easy. M81 is more face on and much brighter, I could easily make it out. However M82 was much more difficult and will be subject to a lot more study by me when the moon decides to clear off.

So to round off my knowledge has expanded tremendously since I first started observing and it all just reinforces my decision to buy a dobsonian next with complete enthusiasm!

Some of my next planned objects to discover are:

> Juno

> M56 ring nebula

> Owl cluster

> Cats eye nebula