Celestron Skymaster 15x70s - first night out.

[cantab]

Last night (from 12:30 am on the 14th June) the clouds cleared for once, allowing me to take out my new Celestron 15x70s for some proper observing. I'll quickly cover what I looked at, then discuss the binoculars themselves.

Objects seen

M92 was the first target I went for. I've long wanted to see this globular cluster, since I've done some sci-fi writing set in it. Hercules being pretty much at the zenith made this a job for handholding the binoculars, and I found it reasonably easily. M92 appeared to me to have a bright star in its centre, unlike most globulars. Stellarium shows the same star, magnitude 8.5 with no designation given. Celestia however doesn't have it, and detailed images don't seem to either. Is this a real star, or is it the core of M92 appearing sharply brighter than the rest (and Stellarium "faking" the appearance with a star?)

M13 was next naturally. I'd already seen it a few days prior in the 10x50s, and had little trouble finding it again. There wasn't an awful lot of difference in the view compared to the 10x50s here.

I spent some time scanning the sky. The rich starfields of the Milky Way were very impressive, visually far more stunning than the little faint fuzzies I went hunting, but random scanning doesn't tend to keep me at the eyepiece for as long as searching for specific things.

Scanning the sparser southern sky, however, I came across another faint fuzzy by chance. Not too dissimilar to how Messier found his objects in the first place is how I like to think of it! I memorised the asterisms around it, and checked with Stellarium later. I had thought it was M14, but a recheck has made me believe it was actually M11.

Then the ISS flew over for the third time of the night. I had seen the previous pass but hadn't properly set up the binoculars. This time round I followed the station with the bins properly focussed, and while I couldn't see any shape it definitely looked like an extended object. (I believe it has an apparent size comparable to Jupiter, so this is what I expected). Throughout the night I must have seen at least half a dozen satellites passing through the binocular field of view, they seemed unusually common; whether the 15x70s are showing more than smaller binoculars, or it was something to do with where in the sky I was looking, I don't know. I also tracked an aeroplane at one point, and could see the light from the cabin windows and just about make out the shape of the plane against the sky background.

I decided to look for some of the globular clusters in Serpens and Ophiuchus, targets suggested in the Phillips "Stargazing with Binoculars" guide. Navigating this part of the sky caused me a fair degree of trouble, ultimately down to the usual thing of wrongly identifying an asterism. (Thought kappa, rho, and iota serpens were gamma, kappa, and beta.) Once I figured this one out I was able to locate M5 fairly easily. It looked like any other round faint fuzzy to be honest.

I searched for M10, M12, and M14, and found one of them, but I'm not sure which. I think I'll need to work out a more detailed star hop for these three.

Looking over the star chart for more objects to observe, M27 looked likely, near Sagitta. Sagitta itself is a nice constellation, the main asterism fitting perfectly in the field of view of my 10x50s. I can see why Ptolemy made it one of his 48. M27 was barely visible in the 10x50s, more obvious in the 15x70s, but still the faintest object of the night and probably close to the limit of what I'll see with the binoculars from my site with my current observing skills.

I ended the night by seeking to split Albireo. I'm not sure if the split should be possible in my binoculars. I did find a close double in about the right region of sky, but it may have been a different star.

I'll post the discussion of the binoculars themselves later, but the quick verdict is they're good.

[Kirkos73]

Hi, I too just bought me a pair of skymaster 15x70s and yet haven't had a clear night to use them. hopefully clear skies will be hear soon,excellent report though.

Kirk