Holiday observing report

[TheMightyKong]

Hi all,

Just got back from a holiday in Sri Lanka (latitude: about 7 deg north), during which I took my pair of 12x50 binoculars. I was born there and I remember the dark starry skies during previous hols, but light pollution is encroaching even at my fairly rural location. The horizon was starting to show that sickly orange glow but higher up the sagittarius milky way was plainly visible. Scorpius looked great riding high something like 50deg above the horizon and briliant jupiter north of Antares.

Sweeping down the body of the scorpion; M4 was an easily seen circular smudge in the same field as brilliant orangey antares. Further down I saw a smudge possibly an open cluster surrounding Zeta Scorpii - where the root of the tail sharpy curves. This wasn't in my guidebook but I later found out it was NGC6231. I also tried for M80 but didn't see it. Following the tail and into the sting, M7 came into view: a very nice large open that was also visible to me with the naked eye. Just higher and to the right was M6 which was much smaller but still resolved.

The 2 open clusters acted as gatekeepers to a rich sweep of milky way above and to the left. Following this I came across the teapot asterism of Sagittarius. Following the spout and upto Lambda Sgr at the apex of the lid, a little skip north to a star i can't name and then down again to bag M21, M20 and M8. M8 the Lagoon nebula looked splendid, i could make out 2 distinct lobes separated by a dark band and a smattering of stars infront of it. M20 the Triffid was much less impressive to me, just looked like an unremarkable blurr. Heading back diagonally up and to the left I saw M17 the Omega nebula and various other nearby bright knots and fuzzies, which at the time i didn't have the patience to identify.

I then started sweeping down the bottom of the teapot and going diagonally down and left from Zeta Sgr M55 a globular was an easy snag. It even like sort of a grainy round blob.

I also went for M11, mainly because I like the name 'Wild Duck Cluster' even if i wouldn't see any shape with bins. Starting with Altiar, which was at zenith, I swept down the tail of the eagle and the pairing of Lamba Aquilae and the dimmer star down and to the right of it. Just 1 binocular field away to about the 4 o'clock position was M11. There was a definate irregular shape to it though no hint of flying ducks!

Another night, at a later time, I tried for a sweep thru Ophuichus, Serpens and to see if i could make out the star in Libra that's green coloured to some people, but there was intermittent cloud and the coconut trees got in the way, and i soon got fed up with the mosquitos and went inside.

[lunator]

Hi MK

Nice report.

It must be great seeing some of the skies sky southern sights so well.

Cheers

Ian

[Jamie]

Nice report Rishi.

Hope you had a great time....