Milky Way and southern Messier objects

[Size9Hex]

A stonkingly good summer night with the Milky Way spanning from Cygnus to Sagittarius. The southern region must be stunning from a darker site given that it was bright enough to just about poke through the light pollution from town!

With naked eye, the dark rift was visible stretching through Cygnus and Aquila. Bright regions around the North American Nebula, Sagittarius star cloud and Lagoon (although this may well have been the star cluster not the nebula?), and a large patch in Scutum. An almost artificially straight bright prominence also caught my eye stretching from the location of M39 in Cygnus (not itself noted/seen) towards the Elephant Trunk (again not seen) in Cepheus.

What a treat to just enjoy the Milky Way with nothing other than a pair of eyes and a big smile! First time I've seen it almost horizon to horizon, which gave me the lovely impression of being part of the galaxy rather than simply looking across towards it (if that makes any sense at all!).

The Startravel 102 came out to dredge a few Messier globs and open clusters from the murk to the south. I suspect some of these would be a doddle higher in the sky, but even from Hampshire the globs (M70 in particular at 6 to 7 degrees altitude) were a stretch. Best approach seemed to be to start with a big exit pupil, get on target, and steadily increase the magnification. A modest exit pupil of 2 to 3mm got good results which surprised me from my previous experience of hitting M13 with high magnification. Resting the eyeball before coming back to the eye piece also helped M70 to suddenly pop out. Quite surprised at the low magnification that revealed the Butterfly Cluster at its best too.

Plenty of wide field enjoyment of the region around the Lagoon, Omega, Eagle and Triffid nebulae and the Sagittarius Star Cloud. The ST102 is cracking paired up with the ES82 24mm eyepiece. Although the 14mm (2.8 exit pupil) coaxed nice details from the brighter regions of the nebulae, it dimmed out the fainter full extent of the objects even though they should have still been in the view. The 24mm showed a surprising extent to the nebulae, but also put the whole region in beautiful context. UHC and Oiii used on the nebulae, although they were visible without.

Oh, and what a sight the Star Cloud is! Never seen anything like it. Even the 24mm was only just wide enough, while the 14mm complimented it by punched deeper. And star clusters littered through the whole surrounding area!

Finished off with a quick wide field tour of the North American, Veil and Pacman nebulae (all with Oiii filter) and the Andromeda galaxies. M31 is an absolute beast under dark skies with a wide field!

The short fast frac has really left me grinning!

[Davesellars]

Sounds like a stunning session!  Possibly time to get a 30mm+ EP for even larger brighter views - especially useful with narrow-band filters.  Love this time of year when it does actually clear like last night (pity it doesn't happen very often though...)

[Size9Hex]

7 minutes ago, Davesellars said:

Sounds like a stunning session!  Possibly time to get a 30mm+ EP for even larger brighter views - especially useful with narrow-band filters.  Love this time of year when it does actually clear like last night (pity it doesn't happen very often though...)

Noooooo! Don't say that! I had a similar thought about a 30mm EP this morning and had only just successfully talked myself out it before I read your reply! 

[Knighty2112]

Very nice report. Sadly no clear skies last night for me, but hoping for some from around 11pm tonight to observe under. Just bought a Meade 2" 68degree 40mm EP last Wednesday, and boy does that thing weigh a ton! Need to add some weights onto my Az3 mount now when using this EP to stop it going down like a see-saw! ? Hoping to get some good wide field views through it fingers crossed!  

[Galactic Wanderer]

Nice report, I need to go somewhere like that to get out of light polluted London.

[johnfosteruk]

Lovely report. I was hoping to see M31 but it hadn't come around the corner from behind the neighbour's house by the time it got cloudy. 

[Size9Hex]

30 minutes ago, johnfosteruk said:

Lovely report. I was hoping to see M31 but it hadn't come around the corner from behind the neighbour's house by the time it got cloudy. 

M31 is a real favourite. Plenty of time to enjoy it at leisure through the Autumn when it's higher in the sky - and at a less antisocial time of day :-)

[Size9Hex]

56 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Very nice report. Sadly no clear skies last night for me, but hoping for some from around 11pm tonight to observe under. Just bought a Meade 2" 68degree 40mm EP last Wednesday, and boy does that thing weigh a ton! Need to add some weights onto my Az3 mount now when using this EP to stop it going down like a see-saw! ? Hoping to get some good wide field views through it fingers crossed!  

Cool I hope it stays clear for you. Forecast for cloud here, but I doubt I'd manage two late sessions in a row anyway!

Hope that the new EP works well for you. Looking forwards to hearing about it. I know what you mean on the AZ3 balance. Think I saw a thread showing how to make a counterweight arm for it.

[Knighty2112]

56 minutes ago, Size9Hex said:

Cool I hope it stays clear for you. Forecast for cloud here, but I doubt I'd manage two late sessions in a row anyway!

Hope that the new EP works well for you. Looking forwards to hearing about it. I know what you mean on the AZ3 balance. Think I saw a thread showing how to make a counterweight arm for it.

Yeah, found this online quite a while ago, but until I got the new EP there was no emergency to get the modification done, but now there is. Just need some time to actually do make it and fit it to the mount. 

http://www.spacegazer.com/index.asp?pageid=97490

[happy-kat]

I added a counter weight arm to my az3.

^ that was the web page that inspired mine.

[rockystar]

cracking report, hoping for a similarly successful session this evening