Observation report for 29/06/2016

[BhaskarK]

This one is going to be relatively short compared to the last reports. 

First up, M57 came easily into view this time and was quite unmistakable. The clouds were fragmented and my naked eye magnitude seemingly jumped since the last session. It was a little grey blot in the eyepiece and when I tried my highest power eyepiece, it easily resolved itself into an oval shape with a circular centre without hint of the star that was supposed to be there. Nevertheless, I am sure it was the Ring Nebula in Lyra.

Next, I tried to aim on M13. All the main stars of Hercules were clear this time but still I had a hard time finding verifying which was which. Like last time, I couldn't drop myself on the cluster from the northern-most star of the main body. Then, I tried an unconventional approach. Looking into the phone planetarium, I found that the azimuth of Vega and the cluster was within 1 degrees (my FOV is about 1.12) of each other. So I aimed on Vega, adjusted the azimuth a little towards where I guessed the cluster must be and and started moving up with an eye on the eyepiece. It was a long way to go but finally, I found it! It was much dimmer than I thought it would be but still it had the graininess of a cluster (And it was brighter than the nebulae). An enjoyable night indeed !

 

Clear Skies !

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report. Not sure what scope you are using but the central star of M57 is very hard. Never spotted it in my 8" SCT, picked up hints of it in a 20" Dob. Depending on which listing you look at, it is a mag 15.3 to 15.75 object, so even a 20" would be stretched in the latter case.

[rockystar]

nice one, glad you eventually found them, your persistence paid off

As Michael says, the middle star of the ring is nearly mag 16, so beyond the reach of most amateurs (I would think).