A very happy man.

[pipnina]

Last night I went into my back garden instead of my frotn garden for a change (after the new, obcenely bright LED street lamps had annoyed me enough). I normally stick to the front because I always got the impression my house would be in the way of me seeing anything in the south, turns out this was wrong!

At first I stood out the back with my 10x50s and just looked to the south, after my eyes got a little dark-adapted (as much as they can be with the city glow behind me to the north) I realised I had never seen so many stars before in my life!

The best part was that I thought I wouldn't be able to see the milky way AT ALL from my house, and thought it would be a struggle from wembury since that's darker but not by a huge ammount. Alas, looking directly upward, I saw a few smudges of milky nebulosity which turned into a massive expanse of stars through my bins. I followed the milky patch down to where the rest of the milky way was supposed to be (according to stellarium) and noticed the cygnus rift fading into nothingness lower down (I must have only been able to see the parts that were going through the zenith, since that appeared to be the darkest part of the sky).

Content with having seen the milky way for the first time, even if it weren't entirely ideal, I went looking for M31 (which has now moved out of plymouth's worst polluted part of sky) I had to take my glasses off to find it at all, but find it I did after finding the right triangle of stars in Cassiopeia and moving down, further, further, further until BAM. M31 sat right in the middle of my binoculars FOV. I can't have been seeing much, I reckon I was only seeing the core. But at least I can cross it off my list.

Seeing something from 2,500 billion light years away is pretty impressive in itself!

In addition, there were still a couple of perseids still around so a little bonus there.

very happy with last night overall.

    ~pip

[laudropb]

Very nice report. It is always nice when you see the Milky Way from your own garden. I only get a glimpse occasionally when the seeing is very good, but it is so special when it comes into view.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great report of a great session

[ronin]

Once you have found it then it is easy the next time.

Think the distance is wrong, think it is 2.5 million light years away, it is due to bump into us in 5 billion years and if 2,500 billion light years distant then it would be travelling relative to us at 500 times the speed of light to manage that if 2,500 billion away. So either us or them (or both) are breaking Einsteins laws, which would be fun as everything would need to be thrown away. :grin:

[pipnina]

Once you have found it then it is easy the next time.

Think the distance is wrong, think it is 2.5 million light years away, it is due to bump into us in 5 billion years and if 2,500 billion light years distant then it would be travelling relative to us at 500 times the speed of light to manage that if 2,500 billion away. So either us or them (or both) are breaking Einsteins laws, which would be fun as everything would need to be thrown away. :grin:

I realised that after the editing window had ended, but ty for pointing it out anyway! I think I got confused between its mass in solar masses (measured in billions) and its distance (which is 2,500 something)

[PeterW]

:-) it's good to be able to beat back the light pollution and see things that you normally can't. I always smile when I do the same in my metropolis racked garden!

PeterW