Saturday night fun

[AndyWB]

So, I went somewhere dark on Saturday with the 10" scope. It was clear, but despite the lack of moon the sky was oddly brighter than the last time I headed out, which would've been a month ago. Certainly, the contrast didn't seem as good.

Got a little confused at first - checking the optics I found my chosen star was large, oval, elongated. After a little puzzlement, I realised - it was Saturn, not Graffias. Oops, but a nice start.

I then trawled the low globular clusters. M4 was faintly visible, speckled in AV despite a sky that was still a bit too blue. M69 was much clearer than I'd seen before, and so much easier to find with the RACI. M22 was marvelous, resolved to the core, and large. I had to do a "which one is better" comparison with M13, which was showing the propeller feature, and, to be honest, is better than M22 - though it's a close thing.

Then I'd a look for M28 - small, round, fuzzy - and nearby NGC6638 was easily spotted.

Then I did the usual tour of M8 (very visible dark lane), M20 (dark lanes just visible), M21, M23-25, M18, M17, M16. I love this patch of sky, and all the nebulae - though they weren't showing the same detail as the last time. I think, as I said, that this was due to contrast.

M11 in the 250px is a bit of a disappointment. I mean, it looks lovely, as this wonderfully rich open cluster - but you can't see the 'wild ducks' formation.

I'd read about 2 planetary nebulae in Aquila that were about 1 degree apart, so I decided to have a look at NGC6803 and NGC6804. Well, 6803 just looked stellar to me, although I didn't push the magnification wildly. 6804 was much bigger and more obvious, though dimmer.

Neptune was worth a gander, so a gander I had. It just looked like a 'fat dot' until I pushed the magnification a bit. x240 showed a definite, but small, disc, and I tried x400 which showed a blurred disc.

The Helix nebula was a large, dim, round doughnut in the sky. Again, it wasn't as good as the last time out too.

But all this is a distraction from from globs, so next M2, which seemed very bright, and M15, which seemed larger overall than M2, but dimmer and looser, though with a very dense core.

Then I thought, "Ah, yes, comet". C/2014 E2 Jacques proved easy to find in Cassiopeia (it was visible in the RACI), and was a surprising large glowing translucent patch in the sky, with a dense little core. It seemed to be round, and faintly green. I didn't see a tail.

M31/32/110 were ok - not as good as the last time I'd been out, and again, I think due to contrast.

Then I went after something on my hit list - the Fireworks galaxy. And I found NGC6939 instead - a nice, rich open cluster. Fortunately, it's close to the Fireworks galaxy, so I saw it too - though just as a faint fuzzy patch, with no detail.

Next up was the nearby Iris nebula. Strange. A single bright star with a faintly brighter translucent glow around it, set in a region that was noticably devoid of other stars. I didn't see any detail, really.

A nice night to be out, and good to knock off a couple of Caldwells

[Scosmico]

I is really good to had a nice night out with the stars. The Helix nebula is on my list. I only saw it once with binocular in a very dark site in Spain. And it was impressive. Lets see what my dob is gong to do with it.