Fantastic night !!!

[John]

Really lovely night here tonight. The Milky Way is clear to the eye across half the sky and I'm having a great time surfing it with my 4" Vixen refractor, some ultra wide eyepieces and an O-III filter to enhance the nebulosity when desired

Targets so far include:

The Veil Complex (E & W segments plus Pickerings Wisp an other nebulosity)

The N American Nebula - well bits of it !!

The Lagoon and Triffid Nebulae

The Dumbell and Ring Nebulae

The Owl Nebula

The Wild Duck Cluster 

Globular cluster M13

Saturn (earlier in the evening)

M81, 82 and 51 galaxies in Ursa Major

M31 and M32 galaxies in Andromeda. I'll catch M110 when the group rise a bit higher 

Some lovely binaries including Albireo, Mizar, Epsilon Lyrae, Delta Cygni, Mu Cygni, Pi Aquilae and Iota Cassiopeiae

They are all "old friends" but it's lovely re-visiting them under such benign conditions. T-shirt, shorts and a nice bottle of chilled wine to quaff in between the gazing  

[lardy]

Yup it is a fine night in the South West, bit like yourself ... making the most of it.

[John]

Addendum:

Also got the Omega and Eagle Nebulae 

M110 is visible now as well. The M31 group is clearing the Bristol "glow" at last.

[Ibbo!]

very good up here as well.

Can even see the the MW despite my friendly street lights best efforts

[Luke]

Great report and a lovely night for me too, inc some more firsts - Lagoon and Triffid. Alas, I ran out of beer long before astro darkness :-o

The Milky Way is such a lovely sight!!

[John]

Some final additions to this great session:

M71 a lovely but faint Globular cluster in Sagitta

M92 that "other" great globular cluster in Hercules

And finally, a very low lunar crescent tinged lemon yellow from Bristols lights but showing a remarkable ring of deep shadow framing the partly visible Sinus Iridum - Bay of Rainbows. Glorious

And now to pack up and to bed. A very happy astronomer

[John]

And as I was packing the scope away .......

A low altitude magnitude -1.7 pass of the ISS 

[alan potts]

Sounds like you had a lot of fun, I had a good night as well and viewed some of the same targets. I came across M9 which is something I have overlooked until now, this would be very low in the sky for you though.

Alan.

[Skylook123]

Wow, sounds like a good season, much less an evening!  Great work.

[baggywrinkle]

Finally got 1st light on the new 'scope.

Light pollution in Ely where I live is bad but at least I took in a few targets and was able to see what the potential is. It looks very good. Optics nice and bright, looking forward to getting it to a darker site.

And I really do need the RACI finder, the straight through one is a pain to use at high altitudes.

[cotterless45]

Fantastic night, stopped at 1.30 with westerly cloud. Seeing was ace and it was sparkly dark especially overhead.

Spent ages on the usual suspects. Wonderful to see Cassiopeia, Pegasus and Triangulum rising. Spotted the Pleiades before packing away, hurrah !

Nick.

[chiltonstar]

Stunning here for an hour or so too - I went round some of the doubles in Cass until it was properly dark, and then had yet another look at the Veil (very clear, even without filter) and the North America. Stopped when another bank of high cloud came in.

Lost a pint of blood to the mozzies I think.

Chris

[Walshie79]

Was fantastic here too between 2330-0030: Milky Way was obvious (could see Cygnus Rift) and could even split Epsilon Lyrae naked eye (OK, with glasses ) which I've never managed before. 

Had a look down Sagittarius way: got Lagoon, Triffid, M22 and 28 in the bins, had a look for M54 as could see zeta Sag but that one is just too low and faint. Had a look up in Scutum (where the MW was very prominent); M11 stood out immediately and bagged a new Messier in M26. Then proof it was a really clear night: I popped over to Ursa Major and saw M101 clearly, even though it was only about 45 degrees up.

More nights like that please!

[Grotemobile]

 Could see nothing at all here on the
South coast.Supposed to be clear.

Steve

[AndyWB]

I'm jealous - it looked good last night, but I had to be functional for work...

[John]

Sounds like others had a good time too 

I'm a bit frazzled this morning though as I didn't hit the sack until 4:00 am    . My other half was not too amused ! 

[Mike73]

It was a good night wasn't it John.

I spent the night just object hopping, not really looking at anything too hard and I viewed pretty much the same as your list + a few NGC globs.

Same again tonight but heading to a dark site with a really good Southerly view to really take in our Milky Way objects.

[philj]

Great stuff John. It was nice here also and I managed a couple of hours I didn't have the stamina for a full nighter, I must be getting old

[andrew63]

Nice session John.  The recent storms must have cleansed atmosphere.

andrew

[Helen]

Sounds brilliant John.  It's memories of nights like this that keep us going through the periods of awful weather.  I was out until nearly 3 the night before so decided to go to bed last night - looks like very poor decision-making!!  Hopefully tonight will be as good though.  I'm off to a concert in Cardiff and am tempted to stick my scope in the car and stop at a dark sky site with a lower southern horizon on the way home - it would be good to get some of those summer low southern treasures!

Helen

[Paul73]

I'm a bit frazzled this morning though as I didn't hit the sack until 4:00 am    . My other half was not too amused !

I've learned that climbing into bed and giving an excited blow by blow account of a great observing session is rarely well received...... You would think that your nearest & dearest would be a little more supportive!

Glad you had a good session. Mine was somewhat shorter but enjoyable none the less.

Paul

[Moonshane]

top night John

I had an hour or so but the whole school trip yesterday (and a couple of bottles of lager) caught up with me at midnight so I went to bed.

I remember thinking to myself 'the sky's back at last'

[Mark at Beaufort]

John it was a fantastic night - I observed with the Skywatcher 150 PDS until 2am.

Started with M4 then M19, M62, pleased to get NGC6528 (one of my last Herschel 400 objects), M22, M28, Lagoon, Trifid, M23, Omega, Eagle, M26, M11, M75, NGC6818 (little Gem PN), I think I got Barnard's Galaxy and ended with M71, M27 and the Brocchi's Cluster.

I bought a 80mm f5 Achro (not the best for magnification) but with the correct image Diagonal and a wide field EP I was able to use it for star hopping. In fact virtually all the DSOs that I viewed last night were visible in this little frac.

[John]

Lovely stuff Mark 

As Shane said the sky was back last night  

[JamesF]

Sadly I had to call it a night fairly early on (for me) last night as several tiring days were catching up with me.  I did however sit outside with a glass of wine until around midnight, just watching the sky.  Saw a few satellites heading in different directions and a meteor, had a stroll up into the field and picked out Mars and Saturn and generally re-familiarised myself with where everything is at the moment.  I seem to spend a lot of time doing that these days, when it's so long between observing sessions.  I think there must have been entire lunar cycles this year where I've not actually seen the Moon at all

James