Clear & Moonless

[Scooot]

It seemed like an age had past since I was last set up with the 16" on a clear moonless night. So last night my recently acquired Dark Sky App read an SQM of 17.46 before the street lights went out, and 18 after, so not great, but I didn't really care.

I began looking at a few galaxies and later some globulars after reading Nick's latest report, (should have probably done it the other way around). I used sky safari to remind myself of some of the awesome distances I was viewing, the Black Eyed Galaxy being one at 24 million light years, (or is it only a mere 17mly as stated in its description). The globulars were great, M5 not quite as nice as M13 but much better than expected all the same. Unfortunately M12 & M10 were behind some trees.

M53 was memorable, but not because of the cluster itself, which was nice but fairly small in the fov of my 17.3mm. I could see another star very close to the Cluster, but only with averted vision. This makes it seem very faint but it wasn't, it was very obvious, except when I looked straight at it, when it vanished. I looked away and back again to test this blinking affect and wondered at the time if it was part of the cluster. I've since looked it up and it could have been GSC 1454-0637, although there are a couple of other contenders, all of which have visual magnitudes of around 14.6. If it was one of these, and given my skies, i'm quite surprised I could see it, even with the 16". Mind you, I don't know why I couldn't see all of them rather than just one, so maybe there's a brighter star in the vicinity not listed by sky safari. The screenshot below is the rotated dob view.

I had a good look at my favourite M57, and thereabouts before packing up at about 1.30. It was very nice to be out again, I hope many of you managed to take advantage of this rare opportunity as well.
 

[laudropb]

Very good report. I enjoyed the read very much.

[Saganite]

Hi Richard,

I too was fired up by Nick's report, and set my 12" Dob up as well as the 5" frac, intent on following his footsteps, but got distracted by  Jupiter ,Mars, and Saturn, so the Dob spent a lonely night under the stars, while I continued my love affair with Andromeda.( My 5" f15 frac ......named appropriately by my friend, and previous owner)

[alan potts]

Nice report Richard, it is a good while since I have had the Dob out due to either a full Moon or just clouds, I have had a bad run of late. The next few days don't look any better either.

[cotterless45]

Whoop whoop ! Emigrate ! Clear skies from 10 tonight until dawn and Wednesday

 

 

clear all night !

Nicko.

[Scooot]

2 hours ago, cotterless45 said:

Whoop whoop ! Emigrate ! Clear skies from 10 tonight until dawn and Wednesday

 

 

clear all night !

Nicko.

And it's getting warmer, might not even need the long johns

[Scooot]

Thanks for the comments everyone, let's hope the forecasters are right

[alan potts]

3 hours ago, Scooot said:

And it's getting warmer, might not even need the long johns

Going a little away from your fine report but I have just looked at the forecast and it tells me rain from tonight until Saturday, it only goes up to that day. Colder too but not seriously so. I can't believe I am running the heating in May, unheard of here.

[Scooot]

33 minutes ago, alan potts said:

Going a little away from your fine report but I have just looked at the forecast and it tells me rain from tonight until Saturday, it only goes up to that day. Colder too but not seriously so. I can't believe I am running the heating in May, unheard of here.

Yes heatings been on here as well but the forecast I saw last night said a gradual warming up during the week as high pressure moves in, with temperatures rising to 20° by next weekend. Maybe it'll carry on moving towards you

[alan potts]

Richard,

It is not cold it is just awful and I have it until Saturday if the forecast is to be believed. I sometimes question whether I would bother with astronomy if it was like this all the time, I haven't really had a chance since the last full Moon, then I didn't bother wanting it to go away believing it would be clear nights later.. Spot the fool, can't even get in the garden as it looks like Humber mud.

[Scooot]

Oh dear, I had stopped bothering to look outside much, just expecting the worse. But that forecast I saw at the weekend is looking pretty good here. Clear tonight and only falling to about 8 at midnight. even the seeing is predicted to be reasonable if meteoblue is right. Just the lousy light pollution to contend with  

[cotterless45]

Emigrate to Bulgaria !!