In the summer triangle

[John]

I've just come in from a couple of hours observing with my 12" dob. Conditions were OK for this time of year although there was still some milkyness in the sky. There were traces of the milky way visible running through Cygnus near the zenith.

I mainly concentrated on the nebulae in the Cygnus-Lyra-Aquilla region checking out my old favourites M57, M27, the Veil and having my 1st attempt at spotting the Cocoon Nebula using an H-Beta filter on loan to me from my good friend Mark (at Beaufort)

The Cocoon eluded me tonight but I'm not surprised as the transparency was far from perfect. It was a very useful "recce" mission though as it got me used to how the sky will look with the H-Beta filter and, using a detailed finder chart, managing to pin down the location of the nebula despite not being able to see it. I'll now know just where to look when the sky is darker !

Switching to my O-III filter I picked up the Veil Nebula complex for the first time this season using the 31mm Nagler. Not the best view I've ever had but both the east and west segments were fairly clear and there was traces of Pickerings WIsp showing between them. The gracefully curving eastern segment stretched right across the 1.6 degree field of view that the big Nagler gives me in the 12" dob while the western portion appeared as a gently meandering river of pale light gradually widening as it runs past the star 52 Cygni.

M27, the Dumbell Nebula in Vulpecula looked quite stunning with my ES 20mm 100 degree eyepiece and the O-III filter. The central misty "apple core" structure appeared to be encapsulated in a fainter bubble of nebulous light which gave the whole object the most three dimensional look that I've seen in it so far. Best view of the session, this one

Finally I removed the O-III filter and pumped up the power on M57, the famous Ring Nebula. I was interested to see how much magnification I could use while still retaining a reasonably well defined shape to the nebula. I went as far as 530x and was quite pleased with the results. The structure of the nebula was looking really quite interesting with uneven thickness and brightness appearing around the outer ring structure and some contrast variations showing across the inner section. When conditions are better I will put the scope on the driven equatorial platform and spend some time with M57 stationary in the eyepiece at these high powers to see if I can spot the central star.

I did have a quick look at a few more favourite objects but the above were where I spent most of my attention.

Conditions could have been better for deep sky observing but it was an enjoyable and useful session anyway

[cotterless45]

Lovely report, just came in ourselves from a very bright night. Must have been a load of moisture brightening things up. M27 was spectacular as well as M31, M15 and M11. Better than last night when only 3 stars were visible.

Ended up splitting zeta Herculis at x333 in the 102.....result !

Let's hope for more

clear skies,

Nick.

[John]

Lovely report, just came in ourselves from a very bright night. Must have been a load of moisture brightening things up. M27 was spectacular as well as M31, M15 and M11. Better than last night when only 3 stars were visible.

Ended up splitting zeta Herculis at x333 in the 102.....result !

Let's hope for more

clear skies,

Nick.

Thats a great split with the 102 Nick - you really do need hi mags to split Zeta

I had a peek at M31 myself but it was still immersed in some of the Bristol "murk" by the time I packed in so far from it's best.