Just dark enough for some bright stars

[DHEB]

Last night the Sun passed, at astronomical midnight (00:55), the 10 degree mark below the horizon at my place. Still some way to go before it is even nautically dark we gladly went outside, you all know too well that there are no excuses to miss a lovely cloudless, windless and warm (15 celsius) night. Dodging the bright sky, son and I packed two binoculars (15x70, 8x42), S&T pocket atlas, red light (unnecessary, as we could read with the moonlight) and headed for a charming nearby lake shore. The moon was up, waning but still large, brightening an already bright sky. Hopeless? Not the slightest: M13, M39, M29, M92, M15, Albireo, epsilon Lyr and delta Lyr all provided a wonderful show. Scanning whatever could be seen of the Milky Way added to the enjoyment. Yet, some things we looked for could not be found: M56 (I know where it is, but could not see it), M57 (too small for the instruments, and too dim for this bright sky), some variables: R Aquilae and Chi Cygni (both too dim for the instrument). It is unusual for us to observe without freezing, and the feeling is indeed superb, one can even concentrate more and easily on the objects! Now looking forward for more and darker late summer nights, when the weather is still warm and the autumn clouds have not yet taken over the skies.

Cheers and clear skies!

[Davesellars]

Nice report!

You went through some nice objects and doubles there.  Certainly a wonderful night to be out scanning the sky with bins!

M57 should have been visible with the 15x70 bins as it's pretty bright and high up at the moment but it's very small at that magnification so perhaps easy to miss.  I think 25-30x is a minimum to resolve as a (tiny) ring

[DHEB]

1 hour ago, Davesellars said:

M57 should have been visible with the 15x70 bins as it's pretty bright and high up at the moment but it's very small at that magnification so perhaps easy to miss.  I think 25-30x is a minimum to resolve as a (tiny) ring

I also think that the limitation of the 15x70 binocular is magnification and not aperture. I tried several times in the past on M57 with just that instrument to no avail.