Friday 17th (New Moon) - What to look for?

[richardjpicot]

Hi Guys!

This Friday seems like a perfect chance for me to have a decent night of stargazing, it's a weekend so don't have to be up early for work the next day, AND it's a new moon! All I can ask for is clear skies.

I've only had a chance to get out with my Skyliner 200p a few times in the past and it's always been a bit up in the air with what to go searching for. I also got my laser collimator and Telrad this week, so really really keen to put them to use!!

I will be out from around 11:30 until the early hours, as i'm sure many people will be with this opportunit. As a novice, what would you take the opportunity to search for??

I haven't had much chance to go deep sky hunting so i'm keen to go looking for a few Messier's.

Upon recommendation on SGL i got Turn Left at Orion, out of the Summer suggestions I was thinking;

- M13 globular cluster

- Cygnus Albireo double star

- M57 Lyra Ring Nebula

- M27 Dumbbell Nubula

- M8 Lagoon Nebula

Seem like a good spread or do you think i've missed anything something great?

Thanks in advance!

[bigrbuk]

Hey, I'm just starting out, but I've ticked off 3/5 of your list in the past couple of weeks and managed to get a glimpse of Andromeda last night too, although it was less than impressive, I'm assuming due to its low down location, LP etc. I failed to find a couple of other targets last night around Ursa Major, but again, that's going against the TLAO recommendations - if you stick with them I can't imagine you'll be far wrong.

[Spec-Chum]

M11 wild duck cluster is good also, It's just down and right from Altair and is pretty easy to find

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Given nothing but rain for the next few nights around me

[kevrees]

Given nothing but rain for the next few nights around me

Same here Matt, and its lashing it down at the moment

Another thing worth checking out is skymaps.com. Every month there is a free chart that you can download and print out and it has a list of some of the things worth looking at, listing things to see from just iwth the naked eye to using binoculars and a telescope. Not sure how good it actually is tho as the twice i've tried putting a list of targets together to try and locate using this and screen dumps off stellarium the clouds have come over.

Heres hoping you have clear skies for Friday

[valleyman]

Have a start round Altair and drift down towards SW A lot of sky but trillions of stars (The Milky Way). It is always impressive.