Best night so far

[Ursa Major]

Hello,

I haven’t been able to do much observing lately because of school and the summer nights but yesterday night and this morning I did an all-nighter.

It first I was a bit worried because the met office had said it was going to be misty, but luckily they were wrong.

I started off with M57 which I thought was a little disappointing. Perhaps because my scope isn’t big enough or because a lot of people have said that its their favourite DSO giving it a lot to live up to.

Next stop was Scorpios which was grazing the horizon. I had to keep moving the scope to different locations in my garden to ovoid the trees that were blocking the nearby M80 and M4.

After finding M107 that I failed to see on a previous session I had to wait for the rich area of Sagittarius to drift in to sight from behind my house. Meanwhile I revisited M13 which was very impressive even though none of the stars were resolved.

This drifting from behind my house meant I had to wait for the next target to come into view so rather than going straight on to the next target, I was able to study M19 M14 and M9.

Next across was M23 which was very impressive. Using averted vision and opening my eyes as wide as possible (a technique that works for me) allowed me to see possibly up to 100 stars resolved. I think this has to one of my favourite open clusters now.

I think my favourite object of the night was the Lagoon nebula which was a beautifully delicate cluster/nebula. A close second has to be the Omega nebula which had a lovely straight thick nebula on one half.

At some point in my night I was greeted by the reappearance of Cassiopeia and the Andromeda galaxy which was wonderful as ever.

I also saw the double star alberio which is my first real double star. I thought the colours were a pastel orange yellow and a sky blue.

Two of my fails were the supernova in m51 (its still cool knowing it was there), and the veil nebula which I couldn’t really hope to see on a summer night with a 5 inch scope.

Last night was a night of firsts for me. First with all of these new Messiers and then at 1:37 I saw my first meteor which took about half a second to run from the bottom of Ophiuchus to the top of Libra. It glowed orange. Did anyone else see this!!

Then the next first was seeing the Milky Way sprawled across the sky from my house. At first I thought this was cloud. The limiting magnitude was about 5 so I reckon that’s what you need to be able to see it. I thought it was practically thick around Cygnus and in the area around the wild duck cluster.

This brings me on to a sketch I did of this interesting open cluster which you can find here > http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-sketches-unconventional/147675-m11-wild-duck-cluster.html

Anyway, thanks for baring with me.

[26Left]

That sounds like a great night's observing. I took my son to a dark site last night and he thought exactly the same about the Milky Way through Cygnus. He's still convinced it's a cloud we were looking at.

The Veil is possible with a 5" scope. In fact, with an OIII filter, it's quite easy. But, I have never seen it without a filter, despite several attempts.

[Mark at Beaufort]

Great report Laurie. It shows what can be seen and appreciated with a 5" scope. Some great objects this time of year although they tend to be low in the UK. I always enjoy viewing M22 - fantastic glob.

Mark

[John]

Excellent report and it really shows that you don't need a massive light bucket and coal dark skies to have a lot of fun with deep sky objects

With an O-III filter the Veil nebula should be easily visible with your scope - my 4" shows it well and I've also managed it with an 80mm with a UHC filter. Without the filter it's a challenge to see anything of it even with my 10". Well worth the investment IMHO as the Veil complex (there is more than one part to it) is a really showpiece of the summer skies in my view

The O-III (or a good UHC) will enable you to see the Owl Nebula in Ursa Major as well plus benefits an number of other nebulae as a bonus.

[Multi-Coated]

Laurie , very good report. I was all set to spend the few hours of relative darkness in the obs , fell asleep and woke at 3am:(. My limiting mag is a tad above 4.5 and can make out the Milky Way quite nicely on a good night. Hopefully can catch up tonight . Rob

[Ursa Major]

Thanks for your kind relpies.

I hope to see the rest of the Messiers in that area when I go to France this summer where they will rise higher off the horizon. Only 19 more to go.

How common are meteors? how bright are they normally? I estimated the one I saw at about mag -4.

[swamp thing]

Hi Laurie

Nice report, how did you find M9, M14,M19, and M107, could you resolve any stars?

I am the other way round on M8 and M17 could you see the dust lane across the lagoon?

As John said an O-III filter makes the Veil see-able without it, it's pretty tricky.

See if you can get to a dark site for that SN, you never know, maybe.

Regards Steve

ps Love your sketch, wish I could do it ( I cannot sketch for toffee ).

[hellothere123]

yes

[F15Rules]

Great report Laurie, you had a great night:) - we had cloud in the Midlands:mad:..

I'm surprised you didn't manage to resolve any stars in M13, especially given some of the things you DID manage to see with your 5" scope...have another go, and don't be afraid to use high Magnification on M13..if you can go up to 160x to 200x the sky background should darken and you may just see lots of faint stars "popping" into view around the edge of the field, especially with averted vision..

good luck and thanks for a great report..

cheers

Dave

[Ursa Major]

Hi Laurie

Nice report, how did you find M9, M14,M19, and M107, could you resolve any stars?

I am the other way round on M8 and M17 could you see the dust lane across the lagoon?

As John said an O-III filter makes the Veil see-able without it, it's pretty tricky.

See if you can get to a dark site for that SN, you never know, maybe.

Regards Steve

ps Love your sketch, wish I could do it ( I cannot sketch for toffee ).

Thanks Steve,

I found all of the objects by using stellarium to help me star hop from the nearest bright star to the target. I’m pretty confident now that I could find them without any aid now though. I will have to put my memory to the test to see if I can see that dust lane.

The globulars were really very faint and I didn’t use much magnification (I need some better eyepieces) so I could not resolve any stars.

I’m glad you like my sketch. I look forward to doing some more during the holidays.

[Ursa Major]

Great report Laurie, you had a great night:) - we had cloud in the Midlands:mad:..

I'm surprised you didn't manage to resolve any stars in M13, especially given some of the things you DID manage to see with your 5" scope...have another go, and don't be afraid to use high Magnification on M13..if you can go up to 160x to 200x the sky background should darken and you may just see lots of faint stars "popping" into view around the edge of the field, especially with averted vision..

good luck and thanks for a great report..

cheers

Dave

Thanks for the advise Dave,

The maximum magnification I can go up to is x130 and that’s with the SW stock 10mm and Barlow so all the stars just seem to merge into a grey mist. The hardest object was M24 which appeared as a slight increase of brightness against the background sky.