What did I see?

[claire1985]

In Wales Saturday night, albeit rather drunk so could have been seeing double I spotted a beautiful naked eye object just under the plough if I remember rightly, maybe just to the right of it, could clearly make it out with my eyes and through the binos it was stunning, huge cluster of stars, anyone have any ideas?

[Digz]

If you have stellarium you could look it up on there to see if it was a real object.....

[DirkSteele]

Was it in the North /North West direction, i.e to the right as facing down the camp towards where Jupiter was before it set? If so, it was probably the Perseus Double Cluster. It was definitely naked eye visible as a smudge in the sky and is a stunning sight through any optical aid.

[claire1985]

We were looking south, the sun set on our right just behind us, I've looked on all my charts but none list clusters.

[Astro Imp]

Sounds like it could have been M44, the Beehive cluster, agreed stunning.

[claire1985]

Sounds like it could have been M44, the Beehive cluster, agreed stunning.

That was my first thought but having a look at my star chart is suggesting cancer was too far away for it to be that,

I'm stumped x

[DirkSteele]

Strange. The Beehive was also clearly visible naked eye. I am not sure there are any other clusters in that part of the sky that are naked eye visible under dark skies.

[jimieee]

Coma Berenices? The "top" part. That's in a south-ish direction at the moment...

[foundaplanet]

My guess would be that you was seeing the star cluster in Coma Berencies.

[foundaplanet]

Yes.. as jimieee says

[claire1985]

Maybe it was that then. Thank guys x