and in it rolls

[estwing]

well just had a quick one tonight...the promise of greatness is being spoiled by LP bouncing off a layer of cloud over Stoke-on-Trent..nevermind I had a wander under Leo and got the other triplet (M105,95 and M96) then had a bash at M3 ....Wooaaahh tis wonderful faint hunting then swinging round to a glob like this!...not sure but when you've had your eye on a patch of grey letting the photons in,then grab a glob, the impact of said cluster seems 10 fold?...could be just me! anyway enjoy the dark as the nights are getting shorter...clear skies!

[Saganite]

Yep it is great to be out at last. Had about 90 minutes so far looking at all the

usual targets, but i've settled on M13.

No street lights to worry about, but everyone seems to have lit

their log burners. I'm gonna smell like a smoked haddock by morning  

[estwing]

I did crank the power up on M3 to 157 with the 13mm Ethos, which also blew my mind last year on M13..but backed down to 97x with the 21mm Ethos and do you know?,it still looked beautiful if not more so...

[Saganite]

Tonight is a bit special anyway, as I am trying the EQ6 that I recently picked

up, for the first time, and what a luxury to have motor drives.

The cluster is pretty amazing through my 200mm reflector, and

it is a pleasure to just sit and observe.

I  can imagine what it must look like through your scope and eyepiece     

[SteveB72]

I had been in Leo trying to go through my galaxy list but it was not very good and likewise swung round to M53. I adjusted the focus and the stars seemed to leap out, it was fantastic.

Saturn and the ring nebula were also very good, managed to see Titan, Dione, Tethis, Rhea and Iapetus as well.

[Saganite]

Saturn was next, it is almost out from behind the neighbours tree, but so is a whole load

of cloud.

Ah well  Saturday night looks good!

[cotterless45]

Really lovely forecast. Got set up, looking around it was so bright, didn't need my red torch !

Never seen so much sky glow.

The potential was there , as I had a super view of comet Panstarrs at up to x160 in Canes Venatici. This was straight up with a 200 Newt. The rest of the sky was mush,

Nick.

[Moonshane]

funny you should say that Calv. I have never been a fan of ramping the power up too much on globs. many say 300x is best but I like to see them in context with stars around them. I rarely go above 150x for globs and this is an advantage of aperture I suppose as you still resolve the brighter ones (i.e. pretty much all Messiers) to the core.

[Mike73]

Nice report Calv.

Sounds similar to my experience on Thursday, going to the faint M101 to seeing M51 which was really bright and stood out like a sore thumb.

I like globs at any magnification but usually settle on around x200 to sketch them, big enough to easily resolve to the core but still small enough to see the shape and pattern of each one. Saying that I do like going over x300 just to get the WOW effect!

[swamp thing]

To ramp the power up you need to be somewhere really dark. When observing near home I limit it to about 200x on globs. It's at dark sites where it comes alive. The added contrast allows you to really push for those incredible views.

For me you just can't beat a whole eyepiece full of glob. Specially a wide field one like a Nagler. A few weeks back I had M3 at 380x filling the whole field of my powermated 12mm T4........wow! Breathtaking.

[estwing]

It's the contrast that's killing me at home then Steve... Like Shane it's whole frame thing, gotta get a good night at Elan!!!

[jetstream]

Estwing,I wish I could roll your scope over here!...if you ever want to sell it... Contrast means so much-it can get frustrating when the sky doesn't allow for it.