had a good night

[faulksy]

wow had a good night last considering the skys not fully dark, missed Saturn but seen it lots of times,viewed m92 very bright core well impressed, next up m110 strange this one I couldn't see it with my 40mm aero but a walk in the park with my 22mm nagler, must have something to do with exit pupil and summer skys. never seen before psi piscium very nice double and eta cas equally as nice.m103 lovely site,m12,m22,m25 and m10 lovely clusters. looked at a few favourites as well swan neb, ring,dumbell and my first view at Andromeda with the nagler 22mm wow the central core was as bright as I have ever seen it and that includes darkish sites, this will be spectacular when the skys are dark cant wait :grin: :grin:

[starnut]

I had a good night too went to bed about 11pm and didn't wake up until 9 am nearly late for church too

[faulksy]

I had a good night too went to bed about 11pm and didn't wake up until 9 am nearly late for church too

nearly had the same as you, the only reason I didn't was I have just collimated my scope with some soft ware,web cam and artificial star testing and I wanted to try it out, very good results

[John]

Nice report. The 22mm Nagler would have darkened the background sky because of it's higher magnification which I guess is why M110 was visible with it and not with the 40mm Aero. It can be quite elusive, especially under summer skies.

[faulksy]

Nice report. The 22mm Nagler would have darkened the background sky because of it's higher magnification which I guess is why M110 was visible with it and not with the 40mm Aero. It can be quite elusive, especially under summer skies.

thanks john, makes sence. I have put a question up in the astro lounge john about dark skie locations in the summer, just wondered what your thoughts are, thanks john

[AlexB67]

I found M31 a bit underwhelming when I saw it first time on Friday, though I think with better conditions and a good dark sky I can see the potential that is waiting to be unleashed, notwithstanding the more limited photon collecting ability my small bucket can give me

[Paul M]

It's good to hear some positive reports after the lousy weather.

I noticed the sky was exceptionally clear and dark last night. I could just barely make out the brightest areas of the Milky Way in Cygnus at midnight. Even though the horizon was still twilit.

I also spotted Antares from my back garden. A very rare event!

I thunked to myself that some SGL members will be out under the stars sucking it all in

Sadly I started a 12 hours shift this morning at 6:30 so had to go to bed

Tonights sky isn't so promising here.

[John]

thanks john, makes sence. I have put a question up in the astro lounge john about dark skie locations in the summer, just wondered what your thoughts are, thanks john

I make do with my back garden for 99% of my observing. The other 1% has taken place at the SGL star party where we have had some really dark skies over the years.

It's quite amazing to view a deep sky object even with a modest aperture under a really dark sky. My garden is not too light polluted but at the SGL star party one year my 6" scope was performing like my 10" one did at home on galaxies.

I observe M31 quite regularly and it's nice to see it with it's companions M32 and M110 on a dark night. I've seen traces of it's dust lanes once or twice but funnily enough it's my 4" refractor with an ultra wide eyepiece that has shown me those rather than my larger scopes.

[badgerchap]

Good night here too, considering how short it was!

[Nogbad]

The weather is absolutely fantastic, if only it could be this comfortable in the dark skies of winter Tried out my new BSTs on DSOs and spent a very pleasant few hours the dry weather even seems to have done for the midges. The area of the sky around Vega and Deneb was particularly clear and reasonably dark considering the latitude.

[swamp thing]

I found M31 a bit underwhelming when I saw it first time on Friday, though I think with better conditions and a good dark sky I can see the potential that is waiting to be unleashed, notwithstanding the more limited photon collecting ability my small bucket can give me

On the contrary Alex. M31 responds very well indeed to small rich field scopes.

It's all about contrast M31 doesn't give up its outer spiral arm regions with aperture.....only dark skies will do this. The outer spiral arms can be seen easily in bins from a good dark site.

All aperture seems to give is detail within the galaxy. Through a 16" scope from a good dark site the detail within the dust lanes is pretty amazing, but the overall view isn't as good as the galaxy is way to big to fit in any eyepiece FOV.

From said dark site I actually preferred the view through my 15x70 bins to the 16" Dob I had at the time.