"Starry starry night"

[cotterless45]

Set up at 9.20, got comfy moving around the Summer Triangle. Just about 11 , after patchy cloud ,started to rain lightly . Bit of a shock with all the gear out and a clear forecast went to bed and woke at one thirty to a beautiful clear sky. Just looking out of the window looked lovely. Aries was high in the north with  andromeda and Pegasus above. The Milky Way ran through Cygnus and Cassiopeia , glowing in Perseus. Cepheus was at the zenith with the Pleiades up in the north east.
I made a few pages of notes, the best on view being,

M11 , just lovely " Wild duck" cluster in Scutum at x50.
M33, a huge blurry cloud at x50, still there at 3.30 , with the dawn glow.
IC 4756 Graff's cluster in Serpens Cauda.
NGC 6633
IC 4665
NGC 436 and lower to 
NGC 1027.

After 1 , the sky was much darker and calmer . Aquarius below Enif showed
NGC 7009 , the "Saturn nebula"
107 Aquarii, a lovely delicate binary.
Andromeda showed the fabulously packed NGC 752,
NGC 7686.

I was delighted and spent ages looking at the testing split of 36 Andromedae at 1.0" this showed how good the seeing and transparency was.
Lacerta at the zenith showed
NGC 7243, NGC 7296 and NGC 7209.
Cassiopeia gave ,
NGC 436
NGC 1027 and 
IC 1805.
Aries presented some wonderful sights and I was pleased to get the faint B of π Aquarii.
ε Aquarii opened up at 1.4".

For a real treat try NGC 1023 (at +9 ) , our closest lenticular galaxy. It really stands out in the star field at x50 as a bright streak and took x150. I spent some time on Perseus, looking at NGC 1528 a beautiful binary cluster with the "running man" of NGC 1545.
NGC 1582 gave a lovely sight as did 
NGC 1245. I was lucky to get the planetary nebulae
IC 351 and IC 2003. 
The finest cluster was "Pazimino's cluster" in Camelopardarlis at 3h16.1m. +60 07'.
Stock 4 also gave a stunning view. 

A most beautiful long view of "Caroline's Rose" off Caph shows how lovely this most complex structure can look.

By 4 ,Castor and Pollux were up in the north east.

A wonderful session , hoping for those 
Clear skies,
Nick.

[FenlandPaul]

Lovely report Nick, and glad you managed a good session after a false start!  It's exciting to see the Pleiades for the first time each season, although mentally for me that ought to be after  my Summer holiday!!  Great catch on IC 351 and IC 2003 - was that with an OIII filter?

Paul

[PaulB]

I'll second that.

I was up at 0330/ And noticed how "Typically" clear it was on a week-day.

Bring on Autumn with the earlier start, to astronomical dark.

[Sirius Starwatcher]

Nicely done Nick I also managed to get out at 0130 for a couple of hours. Your hit list is much bigger than I managed. Well done a really nice and useful report.

[cotterless45]

1 hour ago, FenlandPaul said:

Lovely report Nick, and glad you managed a good session after a false start!  It's exciting to see the Pleiades for the first time each season, although mentally for me that ought to be after  my Summer holiday!!  Great catch on IC 351 and IC 2003 - was that with an OIII filter?

Paul

Both targets are planetary nebulae, I was very surprised to catch them as non stellar in the field of view. Magnitudes are +11.9 and +11.6, often these can be bright , if the sky is good. Last night was quite remarkable.

I must get an OIII filter one day, everyone raves about them !

Old Nick.

[chiltonstar]

A nice report, as usual, Nick! It was excellent here and a walk on the Downs with the 15x70s looking at the S. Milky Way was fabulous. I'm not really a faint fuzzy enthusiast, but like you impressed by how beautiful the Wild Duck was, as ever. M33 nice too in the bins.

Chris

[Davesellars]

Great report and nice mixed bag of different objects!  Well done on getting out there observing so late.

[Special K]

Rain threatening good quality kit is always the nightmare scenario!  Glad you got a haul in the end and thanks for sharing that list.