What a great night. Bagged a couple of Messiers!

[TractionMan]

Finally had time to get out for more than just a few minutes last night and I absolutely had a blast!

I went out just before midnight with my scope, binos EP case and some printouts from Stellarium. I started the session by slowly cruising the Milky Way, both with my eyes and binos. As my eyes got more dark adapted more of the Milky Way's glow became prominent. Lost my self there for a while, just enjoying the view. Next I decided to revisit M13. Last time I did this it wasn't as dark as this night so I hoped to see a little more and indeed I did. Couldn't resolve any stars with my little scope, but this time it was a nice, in lack of better words grainy blob. Spent most of the time on this object with the 7mm EP although it came out beautifully with the 5mm EP too.

I had planned to try to find and bag another Messier tonight as well, namely M57. As it turned out, it wasn't that hard to get to the general area of it, jumping from Hercules to Vega and then down to Sheliak. Finding it proved to be slightly more difficult. But once I went from the 25mm EP to the 12mm and panned back and forth between Sheliak and Sulafat a few times, I found it. Looked like a tiny out of focus star. Tried both the 7mm and 5mm EP to make it come out a bit more. It worked really well with the 5mm EP, especially with averted vision. I was very happy to find it and naturally I spent alot of time on this one as well.

Then I turned my attention to M31 since I hadn't seen it since the winter and that was with my binos. The core showed up pretty well but that was about it. Still spent some time there just because I was so amazed by what I was actually looking at. But then again, most stuff up there is amazing when you think about it for a while. As a nice bonus, I got to see M110 nearby. Very, very faint (double checked Stellarium afterwards) and it was only visibly through averted vision or by tapping the scope slightly.

Those were the highlights of the night for me. I revisited M57 and M13 again, took a peek at Alcor/Mizar as well as I usually do just because they're so beautiful. Before I went back inside to get some sleep, I got some nice views of Jupiter and Venus. The banding of Jupiter showed up very nicely, especially with the 18mm EP and 2x Barlow. Tried both the 7 and 5mm EP but it was too much this time.

I went to bed very tired and very happy. Two Messiers bagged! This is becoming quite addictive!

[cotterless45]

Certainly is, you did well with M110, you can miss it with too high mag, as it's very faint.

Nick.

[carlc]

Thank you for this - I had a miserable time looking for M57 the other night using a 25mm EP - I'll try more magnification next time.

[Moonshane]

Great report - very enthusiastic! I find for the ring that about 70x is required and it then looks like a ring and not a star. Make sure you are between the right stars as I used to often get that wrong. Good luck.

[cantab]

At low magnifications (like in my bins) it just looks like a star. If you have an eyepiece that will show beta and gamma Lyrae in the same field, then halfway between them is an obtuse triangle of 9th-magnitude "stars", the middle one being M57.

[andrew63]

Enjoyed reading your report - this can become addictive - i think it's partly that you can never run out of objects to see even with a small aperture. As you 'glimpsed' M110 you could have a try at M33 - which you may also get a similar puff like trace of, but it needs to be dark.

andrew

[Double Kick Drum]

Andromeda is a great galaxy. Congrats on bagging it.

Thanks for sharing.

Happy hunting!