Unexpected summer views.

[cotterless45]

By 11 it was dark and comfortable enough to provide good viewing. I'd started off earlier with the GRS and the wide southern belt. Is the GRS getting smaller and darker  ? Looked that way to me. The dark northern belt looked considerably darker and thinner than of late. I got up to a stable x200, just waiting for the details to come in and out is better than fiddling with the focus.

Onto Mars and just a sign of bright albido and darker areas. This was from x100 upwards.
M13 looked brilliantly stunning in the star fields at x50.
Cygnus was well high with Vulpecula and Delphinus. M27 was bright , large and obvious at x50 even in these light skies. M39 was bleached out leaving only a skeleton of bright stars.
Over to Bootes and a long time on binaries. Going off grid,
Σ 1843 showed these even stars in a packed star field.
Σ 1895 , lovely with a long chain in view at x50.
Asellus secundus (ι Bootis) showed it's wide companion at x50.
Light skies however bleached out the companion of Seginus.
More than pleased to get the companion to Ho389 at x200, a clear 1.5" split.

Don't give up on skies at the height of summer, a couple of hours around midnight can give some delicacies,
Clear skies,
Nick.

 

[alan potts]

Nice report Nick, either up early or been out all night? I too have mentioned a couple of time that the GRS looked more red which I imagine is the same as saying darker. Still not got onto Mars with the weather not being kind to me, today looks better though so maybe May will end on a high.

Alan.

[Pig]

Nice one Nick....the skies are looking good here tonight  if so an all night session at the dark site will be on the menu.

Do you have another list I could take with me to suit this time of year ?

[rockystar]

nice to see even the pros fall back on some of the old favourites.

lovely report, I might check out a couple more of those doubles tonight if it says clear.

[laudropb]

Nice report Nick. The GRS is certainly a deeper shade of red than before. It is definitely shrinking at a rate of knots. There is an article in one of this months mags using some of Damien Peaches images to show how much it has shrunk recently and predicting it will be gone in a few years time. So we better make the most of it while we can.

[mapstar]

I dont mind this time of year and will be trying to get out tonight for some of those warm summer targets 

[Physopto]

Warm? It's cold here!