Luke

Meteors never get old to me! I saw a lovely one just two nights ago.

I don't have one myself. Does saguaro's suggestion on cloudynights for the Lunt 50 work?:

Quote

Try this: unscrew the eyepiece holder from the blocking filter diagonal to expose the male T threads on the diagonal. Screw a 5mm or 10mm T thread spacer into the camera and then screw that onto the T threads. This should give you the extra in-distance you need to achieve focus. 

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/681443-cant-focus-my-lunt-ls50-using-zwo-asi178/

Congrats! Nice to see world firsts over here on SGL.

Do you think we are near the peak of what's possible for amateurs? Could e.g. better cameras in time do even more or are we already towards the limit?

“Shall we sell the Equinox 120?” I asked my wife Sarah. “I’m not using it for solar imaging any more, and I really like using the ED100 for visual h-alpha anyway.”

“You can sell your cameras, but the Equinox stays!”

So out came the ED120 last night, looking for a new purpose in life, rather like I am at the mo and perhaps some of my fellow stargazers are too. The first bit of good news was that my giro dual mount didn’t tip over when I put the 120 on it for the first time – the Equinox lives on the HEQ5 normally. Phew! My wife would be suspicious were I to come back with the Equinox in pieces! And since it can indeed go on the giro, maybe the scope can do some solar white light visual for me too this year, with the Baader Herschel wedge. My default is ED100 and Lunt 1.25" wedge, but let's up the resolution while still enjoying the low-tech giro!

And the next bit of good news: I’d forgotten that I had a posh red dot finder, a Baader Sky Surfer V. And the battery still worked! I set the Sky Surfer to “Stun” and aimed its ominous red dot at Alberio. Initial focus was way out, but that big ball just had to be Alberio. Sharpening confirmed the kill. No need to adjust the finder, I must have used it in the Equinox before. Off we go to M51! Gulp! This first view has a lot to live up to... I’d had a spellbinding view of the Whirlpool recently in my 10" dob. And then I was rewarded for giving some TLC to my 8" SCT, which seemed to show me some spiral structure in M51! Or was it down to two Curly Whirlys I’d eaten earlier?

The Whirlpool was dim but nice (as my wife likes to think of me) with my 17.3mm Delos, not as bright as with the dob and SCT, though it could do with more mag. So I go to fetch my 10mm Delos, and as I come out, possibly the best meteor I have seen catches my eye! Below the big dipper, burning up in a calm, graceful manner, it’s there for about 2 to 3 seconds of glory. Surely I am not in for another special night? But I only have until 11pm! I’m teaching my son Matthew to program in the morning, though sometimes it feels the other way round.

In goes the 10mm Delos – we have a complete set of Delosses, or is it Deloi, Delli? And we are very happy with them. I’m hoping to get away without using the mighty 21mm Ethos tonight, just to be lazy and use 1.25" eyepieces only. The view of M51 is much more pleasing to me at 90x mag. Very satisfying! I’m using a chunky Baader diagonal with two click-locks. I could probably play a mean beat with it. The click lock is working well – as I change over eyepieces through the night, the scope stays on target.

I spy with my little eye, H. I head to M13 in Hercules. The view is sweet. Not as bright as with the fatter telescopes, but I can resolve many stars. This could do with more mag! I go to 200x with the 4.5mm. And the view is really lovely with a bit of averted vision. Off to M36, M37 and M38. Though I think I might only have viewed two of the three! My navigation was wonky, with Alnath I think having dipped behind our roof. And I must see the Owl Cluster! I’m not sure the view of the Owl was quite up there with the SCT the other night, but it’s a fine view. The stars are nice and sharp, and I enjoy using my poshest focuser of all, a FeatherTouch 2.5” rack and pinion.

So howz about trying to split a double? Theta Aurigae is conveniently placed, and my dog-eared Collins gem Stars book from 2004 tells me I need at least 100mm of aperture and high magnification to distinguish this tight double. I fiddle around with the FeatherTouch for a few minutes at 200x mag. No joy. Pfffft! The M92 globular cluster near M13 looks nice at 10mm, and is much nicer with the 4.5mm! The minutes whizz by, I need to finish up soon! But I have to split something with the frac first! Nothing too taxing. Castor proves easy peasy at 200x – two nice white stars. Success!

And I wanna see M3 as well before I pack up. But to a novice explorer like me, the globular cluster looks like it's in the middle of nowhere. Here goes, let’s point the deadly dot at about 45% between the rather far apart Arcturus and Cor Caroli... It’s been a lovely night so far and I’m a bit tired and time is ticking. I don’t suppose there is any chance the M3 glob will be in the view first time? Gosh, it is! And the view is good with the 10mm, and fab with the 4.5mm again coming out to play. I’m really enjoying the 4.5 tonight! I can get the stars decently sharp and don't feel like pushing it higher tonight. I have to tear myself away from the view. The globs have been so fantastic this month.

Yikes, 11.15pm! I’ll need two coffees first thing in the morning at this rate! Just one last target, I promise. What will it bee? I switch to the 17.3mm Delos and M44 the Beehive Cluster looks very good. I could do with a wider view, though. Looks like the 21mm Ethos is coming out tonight after all! Accustomed to my Delos eyepieces, I try to twist and extend the 21mm Ethos! As if it isn’t big enough already!

The giro mount doesn’t seem to groan as the Ethos lands. And the Beehive is majestic. A sparkly hive of activity, the stars seem to have a bit more buzz, but it could be I am just getting carried away by the wider view of one of my favourite clusters. The 10" dob can’t take in its full glory. I stay on the Beehive a minute longer than I should, and it’s been another brilliant night. A much shorter one than recently, but I am buzzing.

It's been so nice to get out with different scopes this month. It reminds me of being able to look through various scopes at star parties that fellow stargazers kindly let us do, it’s so nice to see these jewels in different ways. It felt like it freshened things up. It also reminded me of something that seems to be an all-to-frequent occurrence. My wife was right again. The Equinox stays!

The first time I viewed the sun it was a bit disappointing. I just needed to wait until there were some decent sunspots around!

Here are a few other options for checking what's out.

Have a look at the SDO/HMI Continuum:

https://spaceweather.rra.go.kr/observation/space/sun

Direct link to the image:

Or e.g. go to helioviewer.org and open up the Data Sources panel on the left edge, and set Observatory to SDO (I think that's the default), Instrument to HMI, and Measurement to continuum.

When conditions are good you should get some ace views with 10 inches of aperture!

I'd start off with not much power - enough to see the full disc with some decent space around it so you don't have to nudge too often, like if you were observing the whole of the moon. Then up the mag to get in closer to any sunspots you want to have a look at.

Hope a decent group of spots shows up soon for you! It's tiddlers at the mo.

With no solar finder, you could try to use shadows cast by something on the scope to line it up. E.g. I sometimes use the shadow cast by two knobs on the mount head to try and line it up, casting the shadow onto a chair or my shirt.

I think sometimes you just have to cut your losses, unfortunately, and put it down to experience. I was going through my old solar captures over the weekend and I came across this capture (and several others over a few days) taken with a Quark that was a replacement for another Quark.

I think it very neatly summarises why I would be tempted to buy the Quark but wouldn't. The detail around the spot is to my eyes fantastic and better than could be expected from a £1000 filter! Yes, I want a Quark! But hang on. What's all that smearing? Running right through the centre?! Over much of the field? For me, it is unusable for imaging and doubly disappointing given that it was a replacement.

Imagine you buy one from a good supplier like First Light Optics. You know that if you have a pants one you can return it for a refund. That sounds to me worth a punt, I'd be happy to pay return postage too even if it sucked, it's worth a shot!

But what if you like it and keep it and it serves you well for a bit, then develops a fault? You are then without a Quark for some weeks. Then what if the good unit you sent for repair or replacement has been replaced with a unit you are unhappy with? Send it back again, lose more weeks, and hope the replacement for the replacement isn't even worse?

We've had at least two develop faults after a period. My wife's developed a fault I think still within warranty but we decided to write it off rather than deal with them again. My one is still going though has numerous marks in the view, I would not be happy to sell it to anyone. So that's quite a chunk of investment we'll never get back should we feel like making a change. Whereas we were able to sell our two SolarMax 60's.

I know of several folks who have sent Quarks back, some here on SGL, and I don't know that many solar astrophotographers. I get that the Quark is cheap for what it is, but £1000 is still a lot of money for many amateurs and one wonders how a filter like this one ends up in a customer's hands.

I'd go for a 100mm refractor if it was me. Lots of good options here. I have the Skywatcher ED100 DS Pro (F9). It's a bit long but very light for its size and is a joy to use on a giro mount. It's very good for white light solar and nice on the moon. It's not a bad time to be getting a solar option, nice and early in the new cycle.

Solar is lovely as you can just do five or ten minutes and be happy. I have four refractors from 60mm to 120mm and I would probably keep the 100 over the others. It's just a nice balance of aperture to weight and for my taste shows plenty of lunar and solar detail.

My wild alternative suggestion is get a solar h-alpha scope, possibly second hand. Something like a PST, Lunt 50, SolarMax 60. Although it can only observe one object, it's different every day and sometimes changes a lot in a matter of minutes or hours. It might be compatible if nights are a problem and may see a lot of use.

Good luck picking the right option for you.

Welcome to SGL, Alvin!

Welcome to SGL, Max!

Welcome to SGL, Stephen!

Coffee and stargazing sound like  a perfect fit! Buying second hand and possibly selling it on later sounds like a solid plan. Some of the gear out there has barely been used. And once you have more experience you might think something else fits better or maybe you get the bug and may be willing to up the investment!

 The only thing I can think of advice-wise is just to be a little cautious when buying second-hand as there have unfortunately been a few scammers around.

Oh, and if I did it again I would get warmer clothes for my first year!

Good luck with your star travels!

Welcome to SGL, Dave!

The Orion Nebula is one of my favourites too. Best of luck with the new scope.

16 hours ago, Stu said:

The problem is often keeping the magnification down to match the seeing conditions isn’t it? I had good results with a TV85 and also a 106mm f6.5 triplet.

Sorry, I forgot about your point re: matching scopes to seeing conditions. From where I observed I found that the ED100 was almost always fine with the Quark (I would guess 95% plus) and that on the rare occasion it wasn't, I tended to leave it for a while and come back later, and it usually improved enough for me. Maybe my location affects things.

When the seeing wasn't okay for my ED100, it tended to be choppy and I could still see little chops at 60mm and didn't enjoy it. For imaging I remember that I did sometimes step down from the 120mm to 85mm because of seeing conditions.

Although I regularly used four scopes, for me it was not so much to match the seeing. I mainly used my scopes like this:

The Tele Vue 60 was my grab-and-go scope and saw a lot of use during lunch and on holiday. I used it for visual and imaging (undriven - letting the sun drift over the ASI174 chip). I also used the 60 for full disc imaging at home (as four tiles, I think)

The Tele Vue 85 and ED100 are my default visual scopes at home. I put them both on a dual-mount giro and start with the Quark in the ED100 and white light in the 85. Then I swap them over (capping the scopes first and pointing well away from the sun!), mainly so I can sneak in a bit closer on the sunspots in white light.

The Equinox 120 was my favourite to image with from home, being the largest aperture I could use. Here's an image with the Quark and Equinox 120:

Now that I am not imaging, I might rethink things a bit. I'm very happy with the ED100 for visual h-a, but for white light I'd ideally like to be using the Equinox 120 and the Baader Herschel wedge regularly. The problem is I think the Equinox 120 is a bit heavy dual-mounted on the giro, so I have to get the HEQ5 out, which I am a bit lazy to do for solar visual!

14 hours ago, Stu said:

That’s interesting Luke. I would have thought the 100ED may be a bit slow and long focal length for best performance with a Quark but clearly not from your experience. The problem is often keeping the magnification down to match the seeing conditions isn’t it? I had good results with a TV85 and also a 106mm f6.5 triplet.

I was surprised, Stu! I was expecting the Tele Vue 85 (F7) and Equinox 120 (F7.5) to be better with the Quark and its 4.2 Telecentric and recommended F30. But for me the view definitely "pops" best in the Skwatcher ED 100 DS Pro (F9). My wife Sarah agrees.

The least "poppy" scope for me has been the lovely little Tele Vue-60 (F6). To me the contrast is clearly a notch lower with this one versus the 85 and 120, though it's still a nice view and has served me very well - I am happy enough with it.

I give all four a big thumbs up for white light.

Is a Tele Vue or Tak overkill for h-a? Well I think I paid three times more for the Tele Vue 85 than for the ED100, never mind versus non-ED! But I like well-made things and also use my scopes for night time. It's always a joy to use the 85, and the optics are very sharp. I like using quality items!

And the 85 is built like a tank. The package it arrived in was squashed, but the scope looked in perfect nick. The ED100 is light, and I love that, but I wouldn't fancy throwing it about too much.

2 hours ago, Davey-T said:

I think the recommendation for some sort of ERF is based on the worst case scenario probably for folks living in Arizona and similar geographic regions, I use the Baader 35nm ha filter in a 152mm refractor having previously used a UV/IR cut but prior to that used the Quark in 100mm refractor sans filter with no ill effects.

Dave

Dave, can I ask, did you use the UV/IR cut in the 152mm as well, and was the Quark tuning the same / similar as when using the 35nm?

I'm curious why I had problems with the Baader 35nm H-a filter! The view was similar to when the Quark is warming up -  more like white light, and I tried the other tunings but they made little difference.

I gather the 35nm should block even better / light passing through should be cooler. So if the Quark was getting more heat from the UV/IR cut in my 120mm scope, that might explain different tuning.

But then I used the same tuning for that Quark in all my scopes including my little 60mm , which I presume would not generate that much heat. So if heat was affecting the tuning in the 120mm, then wouldn't the Quark have needed different tuning in the 60mm?

 I also used a UV/IR cut with the 60mm, just to be extra cautious!

After trying the 35nm I switched to my usual UV/IR cut and things were fine again, i.e. the only difference was the filter.

Very nice proms indeed! Thanks for the amazing views!

I had no joy with the Baader Ha filter and Quark! My Quark was way off band with it for some reason and I had to return the filter. I use a UV/IR cut (my one is Astronomik L-Filter UV-IR Block Typ 2c) up to 120mm. I've not had any problems with the UV/IR cut, with several Quarks in four different scopes. Hope you find a solution skybadger.

8 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Gosh, @Luke you make me want to get a C8! (...and I already have too many scopes  )

How many scopes have you got, Nik?!  I think the right number of scopes is one more!

That looks like a nice compact scope you have tucked under your arm in your profile pic. Is that the SkyMax? I don't think I have had a look through one of those, I've been very happy with my Skywatcher scopes. I'm especially fond of my SW ED100, which I love to use for solar with safety filters of course.

On 08/04/2021 at 14:10, Davey-T said:

Great night then Luke, my 10" SCT is generally set up for imaging but if we get an exceptionally clear frosty winters night it's great for whizzing around the sky just looking at stuff without having to worry if the tracking's alright or something else has gone amiss as soon as I take my eyes off it.

Dave

That sounds lovely Dave. I've never had a Meade telescope. I'm not sure if I have had anything from Meade, unless the SolarMax 60 counts! Not even an eyepiece I think. I feel like I should get something Meade when funds allow!

Lovely image, and welcome to SGL!

I didn't image with it, but I'd consider the Skywatcher ED100. It performs great with the Quark visually and is a really good scope. Quite long but light. The focal length should be fine with the ASI 174 and a cheap 0.5x reducer on the camera nose. I used the ASI174 with the ED120, which has the same 900mm focal length.

Probably not the best choice for DSO imaging, but great visually with the Quark, and for white light too. I find the 100mm aperture helps for closer up detail over my Tele Vue 85 and for me is a sweet spot between scope size and weight to close up detail.

If I kept one frac only, it might be the ED100! Good luck deciding.

Awwww. No obs here, but one needs to tread carefully: hedgehog crossing. Seems like we have at least two.

On 06/04/2021 at 10:34, Mark at Beaufort said:

Luke glad you are back into observing - a great report and objects. I still remember viewing through your 16" Dob and seeing the Horsehead and NGC 3912 in Leo at SGL8 (in 2013).

Great memories.

Thanks Mark, I will never forget the night we hunted down the Horse! We no longer have the 16 inch, alas. I had a nasty knee injury (not caused by the dob!) that took about a year to get better and I figured maybe the scope was a bit of a handful for me.  My back can get iffy too!

We thought about putting castors on it etc but I tend to want to lift the scopes around. We mainly use our 10 inch solid tube dob these days but would like to get a relatively light 12 or possibly 14 one day if funds allow. Mind you, I had a lovely time with an 8 inch SCT the following night.

I really hope Sarah and I are able to attend another SGL star party, it would be lovely to catch up with folks and to meet more SGLers. And it would be lovely to see the Lucksall site again.

On 06/04/2021 at 08:37, Rob_UK_SE said:

A really fantastic and most enjoyable write-up, Luke. Thanks for sharing it. 😀 You must have been out most of the night to bag the Veil too! 

Thanks Rob, I think it clouded over at about 4am.  I am technically "on holiday" (staycation at home) though out of work currently as well, so I figured, make the most of being able to have a lie-in!

Thanks to everyone for the kind comments! Sorry I am a little late replying, I was wiped out for some of the day, had some stuff to get done, then had an all-nighter with the SCT! hope I never forget how unique and special stargazing is. Being able to e.g. see a galaxy is just mind-blowing.

“Just seen the new prices on Celestron Edge HD scopes,” said Space Hopper in a recent thread about price increases. “Open mouthed...........the 8" has gone up by a over third !!”

I hope I am not tempted to sell mine! Let me see, how much did I pay. £1100! And about £100 less for the reducer than its current price. Gosh, just look at the date of the order confirmation. I bought the Edge 8 NINE YEARS AGO! But I can’t sell it, can I? Admittedly, I have not been using it much. I did love using it for a bit of lunar imaging, but I don’t image any more. Well I can’t leave this scope just sitting there, especially now it just got more expensive!

So out comes the 8 inch SCT, still in pristine condition. But there’s a problem. I want to use the HEQ5, something I have not done for years! Although the little light bucket goes a treat on my trusty Giro mount, I am dead tired from the previous, spellbinding night with my 10 inch dob. I fancy some help tonight locating things. But can I remember how to set it up?

First challenge is to line the mount up with Polaris. Now, is it this star here, or that one there? Oh, I’ll just pick this one and hope the mount works it out when I align the stars! So off we slew to Arcturus. No wait, mount, you’ve shot past it. And then some. My goodness, you’re a long way off, mount, and I thought I was bad at navigating!!!

And it didn’t help that I’d forgotten to line up the Rigel Quikfinder for the scope – it was clearly some way off for the SCT, perhaps I’d last used it on a frac. I centred what might be Arcturus. I say centred, but my 40mm Tele Vue Plossl was not the ideal precision tool for this task. Might this be Capella? Off to Phad next – this star, maybe?

Well, HEQ5. Are we in business? - “Alignment Failed.”

Oh. Now it comes back to me. THIS star is Polaris! How could I forget? Well, I’d forgotten because the pencil markings on the patio had long gone showing me where to place the tripod legs. The handset’s previous date was in 2016! This time I take no prisoners with the alignment (apart from still using the 40mm Plossl). This is definitely Arcturus. And I even take a mo to line up the Quikfinder.

Capella, check! Phad? Most definitely! Done! Well, HEQ5, what say you? - “Alignment may be inaccurate.” I take it as a compliment.

I pop in the 17.3mm Delos and punch in M51. The HEQ5 places the Whirlpool dead centre. WOW! The view is stunning. I think I’m seeing spiral structure! Though I did eat two Curly Whirlys earlier. Through the night, the SCT serves up tasty views of galaxies. The Cigar was fab. That and M51 were better, I felt, than in the dob the previous night! Perhaps it was time to collimate the dob again, not that I’ve ever managed to get it that sharp at higher mag. And I was throwing more power at the galaxies, stepping up to a 12mm Delos I think. The barred spiral NGC633 was nice too.

Good on galaxies, the SCT was glorious on globs! I’d forgotten that we had upgraded the focuser to a Feather Touch and it felt easy to bring things to a sharp focus. The best view of M13 – with an 8mm or 10mm Delos, I think, again tops the dob – the higher mag I am pretty sure is part of it and I find using the goto mount very helpful here. I can leave a higher power eyepiece in and not worry about that making it harder to find stuff.

Lots of stars resolved in M5. M10 a bit faint, but sweet. M12 looks good with averted vision. M3 is impressive. M14 improved later in the night. M107 is tough, but possibly down in the the light pollution a bit. NGC7006 is barely visible. Caldwell 47 in Delphinus (nice to see the dolphin back!) is small and faint with the 12mm Delos, but well worth looking at!

At some point I suddenly remember that I had been struggling to find the Eskimo Nebula of late. There it is! So it hadn’t gone fishing after all. I check out the Cat’s Eye. Looks to me a bit like Blinking Planetary minus the blinking. M27 the Dumbell Nebula, big ‘n bright – love it!

I figured I’d leave open clusters for another night, possibly with the 0.7 reducer to widen the views. Though I couldn't help myself, I had to check out the beautiful Owl Cluster. It looked splendid, one of my best views of it, I would say! The SCT has a nice sharpness to the views that seems not a million miles away from my refractors.

Enjoying the sharpness and Feather Touch, I fancied trying some double stars. 17 Cygni, I see a large blue and a small yellow or red. 61 Cygni is tighter, both stars look yellow to me. Is one of them whiter or bluer? And I really like 95 Herculis. Close and similar sized. Last up for the doubles: Sigma Cassiopeiae. Now this is a much tighter pair! With the 17.3mm Delos in, it first looks like a star slightly out of focus. With the 10mm Delos, it looked like it was on the brink of splitting. With the 6mm, I had a definite but blurry split.

It had been a fab evening again. But there was one final thing I wanted to try. Howz about the Veil with an OIII filter? I seemed to recall OIII was recommended for larger apertures, but nothing ventured, nothing gained! I wasn’t sure how to punch in the Veil in the handset, so panned around the area. I couldn’t make out anything, alas.

Gosh, I am really tired now! That's three nights out of four. I enjoy finding stuff manually with the dob, but tonight I have really appreciated the goto in my tired state. And the 8 inch SCT had reminded me of what excited me about it in the first place: compact and light for its aperture, it packs a surprising punch. Just like the very first SCT we owned, the unassuming, but very capable C6. I don’t plan on selling the 8 any time soon.

This season, I really wanted to get back into stargazing. I’d hardly done any for some years. I had various excuses for the lack of observing. But this season, I was going to be back! Well, the weather was dire for the first month or so. But over the season, the sessions gradually racked up. And I was wondering whether to skip tonight's session - I was feeling cold and tired.

But there was no such defeatist talk over in the Astro Lounge: “Tonight is the night”, declared mdstuart. “Transparent skies over the uk tonight and no moon”.

Well that picked me up. And anyway, get a good session in tonight, and it’s turned out to be a decent season after all!

As for the cold, that turned out to be a non-issue. I put on a second thermal top, a second pair of trousers, and still managed to squeeze through the door! I felt pretty warm! Nothing could stop me now. Apart from, my neck is cold. Where did I put my scarf?

Five frantic minutes later, scarf was located! Of all the places it could be, it was around my neck!!! Tucked inside one of my various layers. Scarf now deployed more strategically, I kicked off the session at low power with my 10inch dob – with the fab 21mm Ethos. Off to Auriga, before it dips behind the house. M36, M37, M38.

Cass is getting a bit low – Owl Cluster next. Glad I got that in – I can’t get enough of this one, with its cool misty eye.

M35 in Gemini. No Eskimo Nebula, alas. It appears to have gone fishing as I just can’t find it these days.

Now often this season I have been plain lazy and stuck with the 21mm Ethos throughout.

But in goes the 14mm Delos for a bit of galaxy hunting in Leo. Now I am pretty sure that’s M65 and M66 right there.

But over here to the right, what goes on? I’m talking about M95 and co. Now I normally see three galaxies in this patch of the sky, two of them very close, and one lower down. But this pattern doesn’t appear to match M95, M96 and M105 in my Collins gem Stars book. M105 looks like it should be above the other two, not below it like I am seeing.

Anyway, the 14mm is paying off.

I’m not very good at navigating in real life, never mind navigating the Universe, so I mentally give myself a high five when I locate NGC 3655. I was actually trying to find 3632, but I’ll score this as a win!

Oooh, must pop over to M67. It’s taken me over a decade to figure out where Cancer is – I only cracked it  the previous session. Off to M51, the Whirlpool galaxy. What a terrific sight, best of the night so far! M81 and 82 are also splendid with the 14mm.

And now for what will likely be a highlight of the evening – M13. I return to M13 a number of times through the night, plus a few other globs: M92, M5, M12, M3. M10 too, which was faint and delicate at the eyepiece, but also very sweet. M56 I found a little tough, but the view gradually improved as I stayed with it for a few minutes.

As I went through the globs, I increased the mag to 12mm, then 10mm, then 8mm - the higher mag again paying off with it being easier for me to resolve more stars. I nip over to the Ring Nebula. I had a few pans through the Virgo cluster of galaxies. Then onto some galaxies in Canes Venatici. All of a sudden, WOOOOSH! A lovely meteorite, to the right of Lyra. It didn't actually make a woooosh noise, apart from in my head.

Owl Nebula – not normally one I check out, but I will in future - it looked great. The barred spiral M108. An easy split of Alberio. Defocus to more easily see the colours.

The hours are passing by. I take my time with some of the views, enjoying the jewels on display. The evening looks to be coming to an end, however – cloud is moving in. Cygnus starts to disappear from view.

Hmmm, looks like the Veil Nebula will be clouded over in seconds. I don’t suppose if I go fetch my OIII filter and pop the 21mm Ethos in, there will be time to bag the Veil...

So a few minutes later, and lo and behold, I’m looking at the Veil! The clouds seem frozen in that part of the sky. And the broom looks ace! Well, this would be a magical place to end the night. Maybe I should stop now. But, let’s just have a looksy and see if anything else is worth a scan.

Oh, the full sky pretty much is clouded over now. That really was a good place to stop. The broom was a magical place to end a special night. And it sure feels good to be back!