A night in the Canaries with binocs

[neural]

Had a few days in La Palma in the Canaries recently and took along my trusty Fuji 16x70s (as well as a monopod, acquired for the occasion). Only managed one observing session, but it was well worth the effort nonetheless. If anyone is reading this and thinking 'that wasn't M-this, it was NGC-that' then please let me know! Many of these objects were firsts for me given my usual London sky. 

4am-6am 23.4.2015, N 28.78 W 17.96. With naked eye, stars around mag 5.5-5.7 were seen immediately with averted vision, mag 6.2-6.3 with some difficulty. Milky Way with plenty of structure from horizon to horizon (I had a nice high observing position so probably 10-15 degrees horizon all round): for example the two prongs of dust opening around theta Oph were quite obvious with direct vision. I'm not sure what this would be per Bortle: maybe 3 or 4? About a dozen meteors seen, mostly fast-moving, short tracks, not especially bright, some perhaps most delta Lyrids. 

Veil. I really wasn't sure what I was expecting to see. Even after finding the right place, I still wasn't sure as the Milky Way was so dense that it was hard to tell what was MW and what nebula. I recorded 'a shallow arc pointing upwards and to the right (at 5am), maybe about 10x as long as wide, and the inner (concave) edge is studded with 6-7 stars; within the bowl of the arc is a darker area with less MW brightness.' I reckon this was the eastern part of the Veil. If so, it wasn't at all difficult to see and I wish I'd looked for the western part! 

M24. An incredible richness of bright stars set on a bright MW background, covering at least half if not more of the 4-degree binocular field. A really astonishing sight, with extra interest added by dark dust clouds. A completely beautiful field.

Omega Cen: Just past culmination, near the horizon, just visible naked-eye; not necessarily non-stellar naked-eye, but perhaps with averted vision. 16x fried-egg appearance, with a bright, large core, surrounded by a more diffuse and more graded halo. Approaching the size of the full Moon? 

Open clusters... M6: Irregular in shape, with six bright stars. Within and just around this, lots and lots of stars that leap into view with averted vision; at least three dozen in a small space, very rich. Dense with bright stars rather than with clusterness. M7: Clearly visible with direct vision, naked-eye, like a clump of haze or a particularly bright spot in the Milky Way. At 16x, big and bright and splashy with perhaps a dozen bright stars. No clusterness, but set within dense billowing clouds of Milky Way, which even at 16x look just as diffuse as they do to the naked eye. Not dense, just lots of stars around. Circular-ish. 

'Bright' nebulae... M8: Outside the bright MW, so shines out clearly; bright and has at one side of it a little knot of a star cluster, NGC 6530, which is quite small even in 16x, but attractive, with several bright stars. M17: Small, arrowhead-shaped shred of brightness. M16: Larger and paler than M17, amorphous, and with some stars within it unlike M17 [this seems odd but I've checked with Stellarium and was definitely looking at the right things]. 

Galaxies... M51 direct vision with an obvious double shape.  M81/82 not at all difficult at 16x, M81 with a sharp bright core and quite a large oval diffuse halo, M82 appearing slightly banana-shaped due to an overlying field star.  Between Denebola and Vindemiatrix there are a number of small difficult patches of fuzz. It's hard to identify individual ones but I'm pretty sure I'm seeing M84 and M86 close together; there are at least 2-3 others in the general vicinity.  M99, M100: tiny and medium-sized patches of fuzz respectively.  M63 small, elongated shred with a field star at one end. Quite small, not difficult to see but no structure as such. M94 small and bright; I'd have taken this for a globular. Tiny, almost stellar, bright core, and a very faint halo around it. M101 large, direct-vision, but much better averted-vision. Delicate pale glow; with prolonged averted vision it has a core which spreads out very delicately and gently towards the edges. 

Globulars... M4 very nice, bright core and a halo about four times the width. (Is it just me who thinks globs look like nipples?) M22 large, not very condensed blob, bright. M28 very small, not bright, only just non-stellar. M71/M56/M9/M107 small, dim and unprepossessing. 

Good times! Clear skies to one and all. 

[Martin Meredith]

Great report. M24 is one of my favourite binocular objects of all time.

Martin

[laser_jock99]

Is it just me who thinks globs look like nipples?

Will I ever be able to look at Globs in the same way again, now I've read that!

[cotterless45]

Great report, so pleased that you've included Bode's. Such an easy target in bins. Sounds like you had some super views and have described the appearance of the huge Eastern Veil,

Nick.

[Piero]

It seems you enjoyed a lot! 

Great report! Watching from a dark place is something unique and unforgettable! 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Lovely report. The Western Veil is rather harder for me than the Eastern. My 15x70s readily pick out the Eastern Veil under good skies, but the Western is a good deal harder. This is where I really prefer my 80mm at 15.5x with the Nagler 31T5 "Panzerfaust" and UHC filter. The filter really helps the nebula pop out from the dense star field

[neural]

Lovely report. The Western Veil is rather harder for me than the Eastern. My 15x70s readily pick out the Eastern Veil under good skies, but the Western is a good deal harder. This is where I really prefer my 80mm at 15.5x with the Nagler 31T5 "Panzerfaust" and UHC filter. The filter really helps the nebula pop out from the dense star field

Ah, a UHC? That's interesting, I assumed one would need a dedicated OIII. I could have taken my UHC with me for one-eyed squinting.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

UHC and O-III both work, but I prefer UHC in my 80mm on the Veil.