Fantastic night for middle of summer!

[Unicronicus]

Had a blinder of a night last night DSO hunting, even if the skies were not as dark as we had hoped and with a slight haze! The sunset could still be seen lighting up the western sky even at close to midnight, and then the moon would be coming up to spoil our chances at dso hunting...

We started with the Leo trio before it set beyond the house but this proved very hard to see and I think I may have caught a fuzzy glimpse of it just before it disappeared behind the chimney. Oh well.

We then turned out attention to M57 the ring nebula. Not as good as the last viewing we managed under no moon light but still impressive through our 15mm Vixen NPL but no UHC filter this time.

Next stop was a quick nudge down to the globular cluster M56 before focusing our attention onto M27 the dumbbell nebula. Wow! We thought it would be pretty dim but it was far from it, fairly easy to find as well we thought. Being so bright we decided to try it with our wide angle 8mm and it took the higher mag beautifully.

A quick coffee break and then it was onto M31 the Andromeda galaxy. It is nice and high in the sky come midnight to observing it shouldn't be too much of a problem with a clear landscape. Low and behold we found it, but it's no way near as impressive as we had hoped. It's very bright yes, but making out the disc like shape to it is hard with it having such a bright core. Any tips?

The next stop was the whirlpool galaxy M51a, which is interacting with M51b below the handle of the big dipper. This was hard to focus on but you can distinctly make out the two bright cores of both galaxies.

We then went on a nice journey in between the constellations Scutum and Ophiuchus to find the eagle nebula M16, quite a weird combination of a cluster of stars with a haze surrounding it. And just down from that you come across the stunning swan nebula M17, this was pure gold to observe! It is very easy to make out it's distinct shape of a 'tick' and this takes mag fairly well too, but it's best seen through a 15mm or higher.

Other than that, a few views of Saturn to try and see her and the moon's, but it was 2am by then so home time! But if you can stay out late, definitely check out M17 and M27, you won't be disappointed.

[Unicronicus]

Sorry for my bad use of the English language as well, stupid swipe pad on my android phone! And stupid me for not spell checking!

[oldpink]

had one of my best nights ever last night even if it was short

[cotterless45]

Hope that you southerners made the most of M11 !

Nick.

[Unicronicus]

Hope that you southerners made the most of M11 !

Nick.

Unfortunately not, it was getting late and only really had time to check out the two nebulae around that same area. I'm hoping to see the helix nebula next, but I think that's up stupidly early in the morning so sunrise could interfere with that until the summer solstice has been and gone.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report. Some lovely summer objects spotted

[Unicronicus]

Equally as good last night, with the addition of the cats eye nebula. Shame there was a lot of light pollution though over the south so the nebulae there but not as detailed but still very nice!

[mjpfc]

Just spotted a Coloured Parhelion next to Sol, so I think there may be some hazy thin cloud

that may linger into the dark, but I am after M6 and 7 tonight and they are bright enough to

shine through very light murk.

Glad I managed M69-70 last night whe the sky was a little clearer, they do not need much for their

invisibility sheilds to activate.

We shall See.

[WaveSoarer]

That's such a great report. Mrs WaveSoarer and I really love the Isles of Scilly and we've been lucky enough to be on StAgnes on some lovely dark (for June) nights. Winter must be very dark indeed. Andromeda doesn't yield much detail and as it's low in the sky at this time of year it wil be all the more difficult to get much from it. It's better viewed when it's higher in the sky at low magnification. It's huge and a good set of binoculars will give decent views of it too.

Dave

[Unicronicus]

We couldn't see M6 (butterfly cluster) last night because of the HPS lights of a building site lighting up the southern sky, but that is one we wanted to see.

Dave, Aggy is a brilliant place to observe stars from because of the low levels of light pollution. Check out this time lapse video of the skies viewed from St. Agnes

I totally understand the problems with viewing Andromeda at this time of year, as impressive and massive as it currently is (as is m110), it is hard to make out the definitive disc like shape of it even under a 30mm eyepiece. It is so easy to see though with your naked eye, most clusters and nebulae are too in Sagittarius, truly amazing!