Five hours clear !

[cotterless45]

5" achro is a very versatile scope and at f10 can pick out targets giving contrast. The forecasts last night gave 100% cloud, from late afternoon until 1.30 it was clear and washed by earlier rain.

As a tester , kicking off with the tight binary 36 Andromedae was a great tester. No popping in and out, just 1.1" at x216. Over to the light glow and cotton reel of M76 and up to the glowing eyes of the " skull and crossbones " of NGC 1502. Oh and a look at Neptune, it's a versatile scope ! Using high mag. To get Mirach out of the way, I caught the faint ghost NGC 404. Over to a resolved and fine M2 and M15.

I followed the Webb society Observers handbook, vol3 , finding some of the compact star clouds and signs of nébulosité in the clusters to Cassiopeia and Perseus. Into ; Berkeley 3, King 16, NGC 381, NGC 436, NGC 559 and NGC 1245. There are some very fine dusty clusters out there.

The Milky Way was faint, but visible across the sky. The rest of the night was spent sitting in the calm dry chill fetching up the most colourful binaries and triples to Pegasus . Aries and Perseus. Ending with the clusters M36,M37 and M38 to rising Auriga. I noticed during the night a very bright ρ Persei near Algol, every time I went back to it by eye it changed in brightness, very odd ,

clear skies !

Nick.

[Special K]

57 minutes ago, cotterless45 said:

ρ Persei

I would suspect your eagle vision gets better hour by hour, which might explain it  

I'm really liking the thought of that 5" achro and you've had some great results in that session. I really need to join the party but been too tied up to take advantage of these fine September skies.  

[Knighty2112]

Nice work Nick. Got to get 36 Andromeda myself to check it out in my grace too. Sadly awayfro work all week, so only get time on Friday/Saturday night when back home again. Fingers crossed for clear skies eh!  

[Davesellars]

Great session Nick! 5 hours is not too bad at all... . I love the Cassiopeia to Perseus region especially with the refractors it's so rich with clusters it's a delight sometimes just to drift around there.

it was beautifully clear here too but no observing for me unfortunately... can't wait to get back out there!

[kerrylewis]

Lovely session Nick. Having to do my observing vicariously at the moment, so loving your reports. Keep 'em coming

Kerry 

[cotterless45]

Never had you down as a vicar !

[ejp1684]

Thanks for your report, always enjoy them. I was looking at Algol last night, taking its spectra. Well, trying to. Windows 10 decided to do an update right in the middle of my session, which took an hour. I've now changed the settings so hopefully that won't happen again. Thank you Microsoft.

Eric.

[Knighty2112]

6 hours ago, cotterless45 said:

Never had you down as a vicar !

Lol! That should have said 'frac, not grace. Not quite sure how it got changed to that, but I did type it in quickly on my iPhone this morning rather than my IPad so most likely never picked up on a spelling error that changed the word to grace somehow! Bless you my son for pointing that out! Hehe!  

 

[alan potts]

Great you don't take too much notice of the weather forecasters Nick. I got 2 hours last night even though whilst outside according to the forecast I should have been swimming, it started spitting around 10 but that was all it did do. Do you know I think we could both be weathermen and get it right more often.

Alan

[John]

Nice report Nick

 

 

[Knighty2112]

As one of the Python gang (Palin I think it was) said in that classic movie of theirs set in Israel about a certain Brian when thrown into a dungeon before been crucified, "You lucky, lucky b@&*%#!d!"  

[kerrylewis]

6 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Lol! That should have said 'frac, not grace. Not quite sure how it got changed to that, but I did type it in quickly on my iPhone this morning rather than my IPad so most likely never picked up on a spelling error that changed the word to grace somehow! Bless you my son for pointing that out! Hehe!  

 

You may be right but I thought Nick's comment was aimed at me because I used the phrase 'observing vicariously' - which everyone knows means 'only observing on Sundays' 

[Knighty2112]

6 minutes ago, kerrylewis said:

You may be right but I thought Nick's comment was aimed at me because I used the phrase 'observing vicariously' - which everyone knows means 'only observing on Sundays' 

OK. My bad.