Clear sky! - 2nd Aug 2014

[DRT]

We had a fantastic clear sky here in Derbyshire tonight and not even the late evening glow from the Moon could drown out the Milky Way.

Tonight was the first dark sky session I have had with my new 12" Dob but I have to admit I spent most of my time with the CPC Goto. Star hopping with a big Dob when you can see that many stars isn't easy!

So here is what I looked at for the first time this evening…

NGC6543 (Cat's Eye Nebula in Draco)

Small electric blue disk against a very black sky. I looked at this for quite a while and eventually noticed a pin-head star right in the centre of the nebula. It was slightly easier to see the detail with averted vision. A very nice object.

NGC188 (Open Cluster in Cepheus)

Very open with dozens of bright stars, some grouped into smaller clusters, and thousands of dimmer stars in the background.

M29 (Open Cluster in Cygnus)

A beautiful bright cluster with countless faint pinhead Milky Way stars as a backdrop. Stunning.

M39 (Open Cluster in Cygnus)

An enormous cluster of stars. Larger than its close neighbour, M29, and needed to move the scope around to see it all. A very nice object.

NGC129 (Open Cluster in Cassiopeia)

A few dozen evenly dispersed stars - mostly quite low magnitude but a few of them bright and some of them look to be coloured.

NGC225 (Open Cluster in Cassiopeia)

A very nice tightly packed cluster of bright stars on a very dark patch of sky.

NGC436 (Open Cluster in Cassiopeia)

Dim and loosely formed. I couldn't quite make out where this cluster begins and ends!

NGC457 (Phi Cas (or E.T.) Cluster in Cassiopeia - Caldwell 13)

Lovely - lots of little tight groups of stars huddled together with one very bright star acting as the shepherd. A very nice object to study.

M103 (Open Cluster in Cassiopeia)

A tightly packed cluster with a central star that appears to be a pinkish red and a couple of outliers with a hint of blue.

NGC637 (Open Cluster in Cassiopeia)

A tiny cluster of around a dozen stars. Nice to look at, but uninspiring.

NGC654 (Open Cluster in Cassiopeia)

A small cluster of dim stars with what looks like a globular core. One of the stars is considerably brighter than the others.

NGC659 (Open Cluster in Cassiopeia)

Seems to be a very large cluster - very difficult to work out where it begins and ends!

So, that's twelve objects I hadn't seen before, but I also re-visited these…

M13 (Great Cluster in Hercules)

Always a favourite and I used this as a benchmark test between my new 12" Dob and the CPC1100. The depth, sharpness and brightness in the Dob won me over but I do like having the tracking on the CPC so that I can stare at this thing for a long time without having to nudge things along.

M31 & M32 (Andromeda Galaxy)

Quite bright and large tonight against a dark sky. I think this is the first time I have had a clear view of M32.

M45 (Pleiades)

Low in the eastern sky at around 2am. This familiar cluster looked fabulous in my new Evostar 120 with the Nagler 31mm inthe diagonal. I look forward to a few months with this old friend.

Neptune & Uranus

I have observed both of these planets before but tonight was the clearest I have seen them. Neptune was a definite blue and Uranus a pale green. I looked at Uranus for quite some time and I am sure I could see some Moons against the very dark sky.

M57 (Ring Nebula)

This object was almost directly above this evening and was stunning. A lovely blue ring with a dark grey core. I viewed this a number of times with various combinations of the 12" Dob and CPC1100 and 12, 17, 22 and 31mm Naglers as well as the full range of TV Plossls. It looked fantastic through all of those EP's. I also completed my first ever sketch, so that I can find M57 again when I need her. It's no masterpiece, but we all have to start somewhere ;-)

Time for bed