A few before the clouds

[Davesellars]

I Started a bit earlier planning to hit the few remaining objects in Ophucius before they go out of reach.

With the C8 quickly setup I warmed up on Saturn at 190x the seeing was rather poor already this starting to hit the murk I think.  Occasionally the Cassini division was easily apparent but fleeting with the seeing.

It seemed sufficiently dark so onwards with the H400...

NGC 6356 (New) gc mag 8.2 - very small kinda loose looking glob at 190x with some brightness showing through the fuzz

NGC 6342 (New) gc mag 9.6 - A bit of an anomaly this one...  Really tiny made up of one tiny patch of light with perhaps a faint star right to the side of it. Difficult even at 190x nothing resolved.

NGC 6369 Little Ghost Nebula (New) planetary nebula mag 11.5 - Small but resolved easily with the 11mm at 117x.  It certainly looks to have shape not quite circular and also a distinct difference in contrast in the centre ligher than the edges at 190x

NGC 6401 gc mag 9.4 (New) - Very faint globular cluster no resolved stars just a faint whiff of light however this certainly was not circular in appearance instead rather irregular pulling it out with the best contrast at 117x

NGC 6445 planetary nebula (New) - Nicely resolved as at 117x showing difference in contrast in the central region to the outer edges.  Seemed to be something else there but couldn't quite make it out.

Cloud then barged in quickly and completely blanketed the entire sky.  I waiting around for half an hour before packing up as it seemed that it wasn't going to improve any time soon...  Oh well, it was nice to be out anyway and it was warm it hadn't been a complete loss at least.   Perhaps if it clears a bit later I'll take a look at the Perseus region with the 120ED mounted inside on the EQ6...  Until then...  there's this bottle of wine to finish!

[alan potts]

Nice report Dave, I really like that area of the sky one of my favourites in this constellation is M107, it's fairly faint but I love the way it is in the centre of four stars making a cross. The seeing has not been at all good here early on as the daytime heat is topping 40 c, and that's a bit warm. You can't see the mountains whci are only about 20 miles away due to the haze. First thing in the morning around dawn is great but sadly I have 101 other jobs to do then.

Alan

[FenlandPaul]

You're certainly rattling through those Herschels, Dave.  Sounds like it was well worth getting out there before the cloud hit.  Did you manage to get out again to look at Perseus?

Enjoying your reports.

Paul

[cotterless45]

Cloud hopping here in the permacloud, give us a break !

Nick.

[Davesellars]

51 minutes ago, FenlandPaul said:

You're certainly rattling through those Herschels, Dave.  Sounds like it was well worth getting out there before the cloud hit.  Did you manage to get out again to look at Perseus?

Enjoying your reports.

Paul

Thanks, Paul!  Unfortunately the clouds never shifted!

[wookie1965]

I have had not a single good night in 3 weeks had a window of about 2 hours Thursday night but my Polar scope wasn't calibrated so unfortunately did not have time view anything.

[Davesellars]

12 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

I have had not a single good night in 3 weeks had a window of about 2 hours Thursday night but my Polar scope wasn't calibrated so unfortunately did not have time view anything.

No need to mess about with your polar scope for visual.  Just get it roughly there and do a 3 star alignment and you're good to go!  ... Actually with such a short window that's what the grab and go frac is for