East Coast Bins

[kerrylewis]

Away for a couple of days on the East coast - it's the wife's birthday. Wandered out of town a bit with the bins. Lovely dark skies.

The new moon with the old in his arms (or whatever the expression is) hung in the west. The earthlight was lovely and the effect of the crescent reaching around with a very thin illuminated portion at each end was spectacular.

Kemble's Cascade easy to spot, it's the effect of an almost straight line of stars amidst such otherwise random clusters - love it. The Double Cluster and Pleiades spectacular and the Andromeda Galaxy showing more than its central core .

The Milky Way looked rich and the Orion Nebula spreading its wings .

Best of all though was the naked eye view of glittering stars and just enough moonlight to highlight the waves breaking on the shingle. It's my birthday........

[Special K]

Many happy return, Kerry. Sounds like those stars by the shoreline have made a great impression! I've been checking out the crescent moon in the bins this week and the earthshine has been amazing indeed. I've also been having a look around Cassiopeia and Perseus and noticed Stock 2 in the vicinity of the Double Cluster; quite a sight. There's also a heck of a lot of interesting activity around IC1805 which I'm thinking of getting the scope involved with. Lots to see and do!

[knobby]

When I saw this thread title I thought it was a new binocular store on the east coast somewhere ...

Hope you had a good birthday :-)

[kerrylewis]

Apologies for any confusion. It's my wife's birthday - hence the trip, but it felt like my birthday scanning the skies. Despite all the atrocious weather this month there have been a few stunning nights in between the storms.

[knobby]

Well wish her happy birthday from your stargazing buds !