July 25/26, 2012: First night in southern France

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

On a campsite just outside Cahors (Camping Les Graves, in St Piere Lafeuille, well recommended, cheap, simple, quiet, clean, and good stargazing field), I set up my scope to trawl the southern skies for the first time during my vacation.

First up was M4, and easy, large target. Next I had a quick look at M10 and M12, which were nice in the finder scope (16x70) and brilliant in the C8 (using 31mm Nagler). I then tried NGC 6366, and a very faint haze suggested itself in averted vision, but it was too faint to be sure (some faint stars confused matters as well).

M24 was naked eye under these skies, and the Lagoon (M8) was better than I have ever seen it to date. NGC 6530, the open closed embedded in M8 was magnificent (seen before but not logged yet, so first new DSO of the session).

I then proceeded to hunt some globulars, and other, less known goodies. Globulars NGC 6553 and NGC 6544 turned up in a single FOV just south of M8. Just a little further south I found NGC 6520, a little open cluster. NGC 6522 and NGC 6528 are another very nice pair of globulars, with NGC 6558 and NGC 6569 another pair nearby.

NGC 6563 is a nice planetary in the same region, quite easily reolved at 93x in the 22mm Nagler with UHC filter. By contrast NGC 6565 is nearly stellar, and only shows itself by the relative brightening with respect to stars in the UHC filter.

Moving north, I picked up M28, and NGC 6638, which is a very nice globular close to Kaus Borealis. M20 showed up nicely indeed, and I had a shot at Barnard's Galaxy (NGC 6822), but no luck there. At 11 new finds, many old friends and just two failures, I called it a night.

[faulksy]

very nice report. sounds like you had a good/ busy night, happy for you

[swamp thing]

Good haul of objects Michael. Sounds like a great nights viewing.

[Expat_tony]

The link below goes to a map of the "triangle noir du Quercy", a. k. a. the "trou noir", with the best seeing in France. Michael, the OP, was either slap bang inside it or right next door.

http://www.espedaillac.fr/tourisme/astronomie-triangle-noir-du-quercy/

I'm fortunate to have a relative living about 30 km west of there, on a hilltop, and apart from the modest glows of Villeneuve-sur-Lot and Agen away to the south, it's dreamland for amateur astronomers. Caught the Perseids one year. Unforgettable. On balance I think I'd rather go there than Kielder Forest

It's a great area in the daytime too. Lesser known cave paintings that rival Lascaux, canoeing, medieval villages, and not half as overrun by tourists as the nearby Dordogne valley (going west from Sarlat le Caneda which is on the map).

Does anyone know of a similar map of GB giving light pollution levels? I should imagine Wales is good once you get a range of hills between you and Birmingham.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Actually, I was not right in there (I would have gone there if I had know about it). The lights of Cahors were occasionally troublesome, but not very much. Next time I will go better prepared

[m_j_lyons]

Sounds like a great location and pretty good conditions...beats my night skies north of San Francisco over the weekend.