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Star hopping around.


cotterless45

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Darkness fell earlier than of late showing the Summer Triangle with the Milky Way wide and clear. Just got the 10" Dob, a 40 mm , a 24 mm ep and a Telrad ,with the Pocket Sky Atlas, to catch up on star hopping . Dew was quite bad and I swapped eps from the case now and again. An old 18" high wooden table was very comfy and ideal to view.

By eye, Delphinus, Vulpecula, Sagitta,Lyra, Pegasus into Andromeda and Cassiopeia. Hercules is still there, but the huge Ophuichus still dominates the south.
Planets were low in the south, overhead the sky especially around Cygnus was packed. From eta head up to the pair of sigma and tau. Make a triangle here and the third star is 61 Cygni   "Piazzi's Flying Star" whizzing , one of the fastest . Lovely to spot these at x30.

Find " The Blue Snowball", NGC 7662 above Pegasus you'll spot an arc of stars (λ,κ ,ι), continue the arc into four stars. At x30, this star doesn't focus and is a bright blue disc . A fabulous sight in the star fields.
M31 was a smudge by eye. From Mirach ( spot NGC 404, the ghost here ), μ was visible , just hop again to M110 laying out from M31 and M32. Don't forget to drop down from the lovely double Almach to the find cluster of NGC 752.

Back to Vega, the top star of a triangle here resolves out to epsilon 1 and 2, the "double double". Have a glide around Lyra for fields of double stars. Drop down to the "swing" below and M57 at x50 is clearly visible. Back to the packed fields at x30, half way between Sulafat and Albireo. The faint smudge of the globular M56. 

The stars of Sagitta , making a line of "three" stars. Get M71 half way between the brightest, a lovely delicate globular. Swing this arrow up until it's  level with Albireo, or come across from M57 to Albireo and straight on. The wonderful cotton wool of M27 glows in the star fields at x30.
The stars of "Job's coffin" are Delphinus. Find the "nose " and the double of gamma, continue here to NGC 7006.

Cassiopeia can keep you happily diverted, light cloud filtered out the double cluster to Perseus. Don't forget M34 here.
Ignore the forecasts, they gave a cloudy night. I had a lovely simple night, just basic. Our giant hedgehog appeared, hurrah.

Next time , it'll be more hunting for M11 and into the south. Cepheus and the garnet star by eye, also beckon.
Back to Pegasus and find the outplaying Enif. Carry the "line " out from Biham and there's the strong glow of the lovely bright  globular M15. I got the wide 8.8mm Meade ep to enjoy these globulars.
Looking south between trees and bright Mars, Saturn above Antares. The stars of Sagittarius, Capricornus and Aquarius with Neptune. Look around and under the familiar , brighter constellations. 
Clear skies ! 

Nick.

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Nice report Nick. Was out last night looking for NGC7662, but sadly was not successful in finding it alas. Tried for over an hour to locate, even using Skysafari to help pin down. Was pretty sure I was in the right area of stars, but sadly no luck. :(

M31 was nice and clear last night though, along with M13 & M92. The planetary nebula M57 stood out easily, so kinda hoped that the blue snowball would pop out just as easy as the ring. I'll try again on the next clear night to hunt it down. Fingers crossed. 

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48 minutes ago, cotterless45 said:

Try the arc of stars above Pegasus, just follow it around and NGC 7662 will be there. It's so non stellar,

Nick.

Was using a 20mm EP in my ST120 frac to hunt it down. This should show it up fairly easily once I get in the right area of sky right with this EP? 

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After tweaking Skysafari to limit the stellar magnitudes, it looks like I was looking too high near this arc of stars you are talking about, so it maybe from my position at the time of observation that it was still obscured by my roof. I'll have to let Pagausus get higher in the sky before I look for it again me thinks so it is well clear of my house. :) 

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Nice report, Nick! Last night I tried in vain for nth time to find M71. I got the star fields right between delta and gamma Sge, confirmed with charts and stellarium, but no hint of the cluster. How difficult it is? I used a 200 mm f/5 Newtonian, with an ES82 18 mm eyepiece. I swear that I had the damn thing in the center of the field but could not realize it, not even with the wildest stretch of the imagination. I blamed the sky that was still light here, not even nautically dark, the poor seeing and poor transparency, but what surprises me is that I could identify M27 as a fuzzy smudge, and that is actually very close and sky conditions should be about the same. How difficult is M71 actually?

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10 minutes ago, Cinco Sauces said:

Nice report, Nick! Last night I tried in vain for nth time to find M71. I got the star fields right between zeta and gamma Sge, confirmed with charts and stellarium, but no hint of the cluster. How difficult it is? I used a 200 mm f/5 Newtonian, with an ES82 18 mm eyepiece. I swear that I had the damn thing in the center of the field but could not realize it, not even with the wildest stretch of the imagination. I blamed the sky that was still light here, not even nautically dark, the poor seeing and poor transparency, but what surprises me is that I could identify M27 as a fuzzy smudge, and that is actually very close and sky conditions should be about the same. How difficult is M71 actually?

Yep! Finding some things are sometimes pretty tricky. One of these days I may buy a Goto mount to assist me, but that may take some of the fun away from when you actually do get the little 'blighters' in view in your EP! Hehe! ;) 

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9 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Yep! Finding some things are sometimes pretty tricky. One of these days I may buy a Goto mount to assist me, but that may take some of the fun away from when you actually do get the little 'blighters' in view in your EP! Hehe! ;) 

Oh yes, no GoTo for me now, as finding things is a big part of the fun for me :happy7::happy7::happy7:

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What a nice report of the evening, Nick!  Thoroughly enjoyed reading the account of your travels around a host of objects and constellations.  You didn't miss much out! ;)

Unfortunately, the cloud stuck around here last night - It may have cleared really late on but certainly by 12:30 it was still cloudy. :p  There's so much in Ophiuchus and Sagittarius for me still to observe so hoping to get a decent run of nights for this coming dark phase.

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Lovely reading, I think it about sums up what I do sometimes but so much more eloquently written and with a lot more success in spotting things. 

Good clear skies again over East Yorkshire, as always on week nights?  

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Sadly I can no longer do star hopping as my back is so bad I cannot keep bending down look through finder or Telrad, I have purchased a goto but think its cheating but at least I can do astro now. Great report Nick couple more objects for me to look at.

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Great night, Nick.  I get so engrossed in your reports - your enthusiasm shines through and I can imagine being shown all of the wonderful sights by the astronomical equivalent of an excitable young spaniel!

Have you tried the Albireo-like double just "below" the swing in Lyra?  I think it's 91 Lyrae - a real jewel.

Paul

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