Elan....summer bash

[estwing]

back in elan last weekend to the mobs spot and weather reports of a decent chance of getting some lower messiers ticked off around the teapot it was hard to resist.Me, swampthing,faulksy,Danny k and Baz set up tents and scopes ready for the darkening of the skies but the Friday night just turned out to be a vodka sampling session!...off to bed at 3am. Up at 9am and after a couple of brews and meals the afternoon turned into a sunbathing session!...rare indeed for this place I can tell you!

9pm and scopes were collimated...my 18" steves 20" and baz had his 14", a good spread of size to compere image scale. I was using the 21mm ethos... First target was M101 and M51 to judge the transparency, it wasn't fantastic but you could make out the spirals in both and it wasn't truly dark yet....very little twinkle from the stars also. So onto M57 and a fair attempt using the 8mm ethos to tease that central star out was to no avail at 255x...next the Dumbbell M27 and my was this on form! a blur of of structure here mightly impressive stuff, best I've seen it. While Cygnus was high and calling the Veil had to be scanned..on with lumicon OIII filter and a big grin spreads across my face...wonderful,delicate and surreal....it never fails to impress under dark skies.

M31...how many times have I been disappointed by the fuzzy blurry mess,well not tonight! Dust lanes on show made me want more so I did something strange...I sneeked Steves 31mm nag in my scope for a wider view....yes I saw of M31 but the lightening of the background with the nag,well lets just get the 21E back in!...NGC457 the skiing cluster a most pleasing sight in any scope!...skier or E.T?...make your own mind up!...a fumble around Polaris for NGC 2276 2300 and 2268 but nothing much was detected so left that as the sky was clearing down towards Saggittarius...time to tick off a few so first in the finderscope was M17..the swan or the Omega neb..with the OIII in this was STUNNING... there's the swan neck extending up and over with the pool behind it and a bloke in a boat fishing in the background!...so,so much here to see..sticking in the Astronomik UHC filter reveals so much more of the nebula than the OIII but the detail is more with the OIII but nice to see the difference.

M16 and a little push up of the scope and there in front of me was one of the pillars of creation!...called faulksy over to confirm and yes one "finger" was clearly there...chuffed!..next M24 the star cloud and I can see a cloud of many stars....what did I expect?!!..M23,M25 and the "biggy" M22..well, a bit hazy down here...slightly miffed as I was waiting for a spectacular boom of light and instead got it on "dipped beam"...hmm. The Trifid M20 was in this soup so was M8 the Lagoon...

So back up with the scope and the dew was getting heavy by now it was 1:30am...on with the show and NGC 891 next then onto a couple of NGC's 1023 and NGC 1003. A bash at G1 again but dew was winning as my primary was fogging and you need everything to be right when seeking this little devil!...first outing for my Nichol mirror after its recoat...any good?...well Danny K says its one of the best mirrors he's looked into...that'll do for me. Star of the show was M17...but the best thing was being in dark skies with great observing buddies...clear skies, Calv. 

[swamp thing]

Nice report mate

Was a great bash and so good to see everyone again. Roll on the next one 

 

[Scott]

well that's something I've learnt today... I didn't know the pillars were individually visible. sounds like a great weekend with great people  

[estwing]

the middle one was deffo there...the tallest on the right(left in a frac) wasn't evident...was on the edge of that haze tho so that might be the reason??

[faulksy]

brilliant brilliant account calv, the pillars made my night, never thought it was visual untill it was pointed out to us.

m27 and m17 were ace i can still see them now. what a top top weekend, shame i didnt have a scope. nice one cal

[cotterless45]

Brilliant , there's about 20 Messiers in that southern area. Even from the edge of town we get the swan and separate nebulosity in M16. Really worth trying for. I came back so excited from Skye last year, the pair of spiral arms and knots of M33 and the central dust lane of NGC 891. These treasures just show you how gorgeous dark sky can be. Sagittarius is just packed, I was surprised to catch the whole teapot floating over the New Forest. 

Hope you get many more nights like that ,

old Nick.

[Pig]

Great report Calvin it sounds like you had a wonderful session  

[Size9Hex]

Fantastic! I love your reports from Elan. Dark skies and big scopes :-)

The Pillars are perhaps at the top of my astronomy bucket list. Would love to see them one day. I've "only" got a 10 inch scope to throw at them, but I'd be happy with even the faintest hint that I've seen them for real.