Clear Skys"Scope Out"

[Timebandit]

 

All was starting to look good yesterday. The skys in the daytime were lovely and blue with very small wispy clouds floating in to view every so often. Sun shining and everything was looking promising for later on in the evening. So fingers crossed and the scope may get some light in a few hours time.

As evening came in and the points of stars started to show. The skys were still clear but a bit of a chill in the air. As no nasty rain clouds seem to be present or forecast then it was time to get dobby out. The shed was opened and dobby slide out onto the viewing area to allow final cool down adjustment.  

Later in the evening, the skys were still clear and transparency reasonably good , well considering what we usually get in the uk.

The VX 14 was already so out , so then the eyepiec's came, the William Optics 28mm Uwan to star the evening as my searcher / finder eyepiece . And this would be supported by the Pentax 10xw and 5xw

Into the big dipper area in the east

M51 was reasonable clear and the smaller companion NGC 5195 , two nice galaxy to start

Cor Caroli , a nice easy double star to see

M94 , a smaller galaxy with a brighter uniform core, a nice compact galaxy 

 

Leo was in the south east direct

Down onto its hind leg and below and to one side of Chort you are into the Two galaxy of M65 and M66, averted vision bings these galaxy out better, and a hint of the more elusive NYC 3628

Algeiba a double star , with one being yellow in color and it's companion sort of more orange, 

Coma Berenice 

M53 a globular clusters, upping the magnificent shows this as a grainy points of various light , with high lighting the numerous stars.

M64, up and to the right of M53 is the Black eye galaxy 

Canes Venactici 

M3 , the nice big globular clusters. This is between Cor Caroli and Arcturus. This is a nice big easy to find DSO , very impressive and a great place to start for a beginner to back there first DSO

As Jupiter was just becoming visable over the neighbours trees. Obviously being reasonably low down the the sky then there is unfortunately more of the earth's atmosphere to cut through and therefore more atmosphere disturbance to contend with. But using the Pentax 7xw and Pentax 5xw then these were nice magnification to use for this giant gas planet.  

 

[alan potts]

Very nice report, it is raining here though I got an hour outside last night.

[Pondus]

Its nice to see reports like this coming in from people with clear sky. Not many chances from this part of the north sea.

 

Rune