July 26, 2012: Afternoon and Evening Sessions in France

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

The second day of my stay in France (near Cahors), I set up the little Lunt in the afternoon, and picked up a massive prominence on the eastern limb. A huge arc of twisted gas looped north to south. After gazing at it for a while, I also noticed several smaller prominences, but they were rather outclassed by the big one. a couple of sunspots and dark strands showed up on the surface as well.

In the early evening I showed the kids Saturn and the moon (swimming in the heat haze, but it still impressed them). Later, despite patchy cloud, I had a short DSO hunt with the C8. I first tried NGC 6355. A thought I picked up a faint haze, but nothing solid enough to be sure. Must try later with less moonlight. I did pick up NGC 6293, another globular in Ophiuchus. It was quite clear in the 17mm. I managed to find NGC 6316 as well, quite faint in the 31mm, but did not get a look in the 17mm because clouds rushed in.

After packing up the scope, A clear patch of sky showed the milky way in Cygnus brilliantly, so I got out the 15x70 bins and had a quick look at M39 and the North America Nebula (NGC 7000).

Not a very long session, but still pleased with two new Herschel 400 objects.