The double cluster and seeing

[Mr Fiery Jack]

Is the double cluster affected by seeing? My view the last two night suddenly deteriorated mid view.

[Moonshane]

as it's a low power wide field object, it's more likely to be affected by transparency. most likely there was some high cloud which is sometimes hard to see.

[Ags]

Or dew on the scope.

[Mr Fiery Jack]

Or dew on the scope.

I wondered about that, I was using the dob and a 32mm plossl at the time.

[crashtestdummy]

you say deteriated mid view,did it return in view after a short time or did the view just go?as some have stated its likely either dew at this time of year or some high up cloud.

[Mr Q]

What you observed that night is a two-sided sword. On one hand, if the conditions keep getting worse, a night's observing is short lived. On the other side, slight to moderate changes in transparency can have quite an effect on clusters like this one. Each degree of conditions will make the object look different - giving it some different charicture on each observation as star colors fade as well as star counts. That's one of the reasons I always re-visit lots of familiar objects - same object but different views.

[Mr Fiery Jack]

Before the clouds rolled in tonight it looked fantastic, perhaps it was poor transparency. View was in my dob, perhaps my frac would have produced better views

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

How long were you observing? Maybe light-spill from the moon as it rose to a bad angle?

Most likely culprit is dew though.