M13 revisited

[egeller624]

Finally a night with decent seeing! The weather and cloud have been rubbish since my new eyepieces arrived last week (of course) but tonight was perfect. I had managed to spend about an hour looking at Saturn through the new ep's last week (over 2 nights) but both times the clouds rolled in just as I was turning the scope to look at M13. So tonight I fought my urge to look at the ringed one first and instead went right to DSO hunting.

A few weeks ago I had seen M13 for the first time through my bins but not the scope. So, I set things up and did my usual "wait until the neighbour's annoying spotlight goes off" and was just casually scanning the skies with the bins while the scope cooled down. Didnt have much luck finding M13 in the bins so I figured I would try the scope. Aiming the scope at the general direction wasnt the most comfy thing in the world (i think i need a shorter stool) but I managed. Didnt realize just how well I had done until I looked through the ep. A few very minor moves and BAM, there she was! It quite literally took my breath away. I popped in the 15mm BST Explorer and the view was stunning. The longer I looked, the more detail seemed to pop out, especially with averted vision. Probably the best part was, unlike Saturn or the Moon which whiz through the fov pretty quickly, DSOs hang around a bit. Long enough to swap ep's without rushing anyway.

After awhile I was feeling pretty confident so I thought I would try to find M92 but didnt have much luck. Before packing up for the night I did sneak a peek at Saturn and Titan. Like others on here have said, you just gotta do it!

[stolenfeather]

Being comfy without an astro-chair can leqd to many aches and pains. Congrats on your successful DSO hunting!

Isabelle

[Adamski]

No matter what i tried last night i could not find m13. I submitted a thread about it and it turns out you had it all the time. Silly me.

[egeller624]

My bad! I put it back, I promise.

I read your post and can completely sympathize. I have had several sessions where it seemed to be in stealth mode.

[astroeddie]

Guys,

The "Keystone" is very high in the skies this time of the year.

Its clearly visible, M13, in 9x50 finders. We viewed it last night in Wayne's 8"dob. Still stunning even in these bright skies. No sign of the galaxy beside it (NGC 6207).

Spotted M92 in binos, but never tried in the scope.

Next couple of months will see the skies darken, and, all those lovely globals will pop out.

PS ..... have you tried M11 ?

Eddie