Fantastic night !!!

[stevend]

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:

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  

That saves me writing a report. Wonderful viewing here for the first time in ages. I stated off with the likes of M29, M57 and M13 (sometimes you forget the 'tourist spots') before concentrating on doubles; your list and a few more.

As I was packing up I saw a shooting star in the NE sky, maybe an Aquarid ?

I then sat down with a coffee and looked up, it is too easy to go back inside and forget that you have not actually looked properly at the sky with the naked eye. In my area the milky way is never going to be obvious but it was clear there was 'something more there'. So I got out the binos pointed at Deneb and went from there, wow !  All the time only wearing a t-shirt.

[cotterless45]

We had a couple of stunning hours before orange clouds blew in about midnight. I'd never seen such detail in the core of M11, got resolved up to x150. A really stunning open cluster in Scutum, right high ! Then did some doubles, posted, hurrah ! Getting darker sooner,

Nick.