First trip into the Lagoon

[Littleguy80]

My evening began with a failed attempt to get a first look at Mercury. I easily spotted the crescent moon but just couldn't find the little planet. I even took my telescope inside and viewed from a first floor bedroom window to get some more height. No luck! After that I returned to the great outdoors for a quick look at Jupiter. This is where I suffered my first astronomy related injury. After adjusting the tripod, I stood up and banged my head on the counter weights. Ouch! I didn't need to look up to see stars after that! Seeing was pretty poor on Jupiter so I decided to move on. Saturn was looking much better with Cassini clearly on display. I also was able to spot 3 moons.

Sagittarius doesn't have many naked eye stars when viewed from my garden. This makes getting finding targets a little more tricky, especially as my only finder is a Telrad. My goal was M8, the Lagoon Nebula. Over the course of the night, I built up the following star hopping route. Nunki to M22 to Kaus Borealis to M28 to 11 Sag and finally landing on M8. One of the most interesting parts of repeating this route was seeing how M22 became brighter as the sky darkened through the course of the night. Towards the end I was able to go directly to Kaus Borealis. Without further delay, here's a run down of the night's viewings:

M22 - Large bright globular cluster. 113x seemed to be the upper limit on magnification with the current levels of darkness. I was able to resolve lots of individual stars, even with direct vision. Apparently M22 is bigger than M13. Come late August, I think this should prove to be really spectacular sight! Next to M22 is a group of bright stars, one of them jumped out as being red in colour. I looked this up afterwards, 24 Sag, a large red giant. Was a nice little bonus alongside M22.

M28 - Small and compact globular cluster. Was quite faint and not that exciting coming from M22. I still spent some time resolving individual stars with averted vision.

M8 - I was really excited to see the Lagoon Nebula. I was initially uncertain that I had the right object as there wasn't any nebulosity. Moving magnification up to 75x with a UHC filter changed all that. A really wonderful object to view. Took me back to the first time I was M42. The nebula appeared to be in two parts. One end had thick nebulosity with two bright stars, the other thinner nebulosity but lots of fainter stars. The view at 50x with an OIII filter showed greater contrast but was a quite a bit darker and not quite as pleasing.

M20 - The Trifid nebula was difficult to see even with the UHC or OIII filter. The nebulosity was faint but visible. Darker skies needed for this one.

M21 - Nice little open cluster with lots more stars popping to view with averted vision.

M24 - The Sagittarius star cloud lived up to it's name. Absolutely massive open cluster. There was a grainy background effect from all the faint stars, reminiscent of noise in a low light photograph. 

M18 - Small and ordinary open cluster. M24 is a tough act to follow!

M17 - Nebulosity easily seen without filters. 75x with an OIII and the Swan appears. My second viewing and still an absolute joy.

M16 - The Eagle nebula is a really pretty open cluster in it's own right. The OIII filter revealed some nebulosity but I actually preferred the unfiltered view.

M25 - I'd briefly seen this open cluster before but didn't spend much time with it. I spent much more time exploring and found a small group of faint stars towards the centre that almost seemed to twinkle as they'd pop in and out of view with averted vision. Was a lovely little trick of the eyes.

The Veil - This was by far my best viewing of the Veil. Moving up from Gienah, I saw the nebulosity of the western veil before 52 Cyg came into view. The Easter Veil was stunning and stood out brilliantly. The whole eastern section fitting really nicely into the eyepiece at 38x. Just keeps getting better with each viewing

North American Nebula - I spent a short amount of time exploring the Florida/Mexico region. The nebula was clear to see in this area. Really enjoying this summer target too.

Crescent Nebula - I knew this was a stretch but with such good conditions I wanted to try. M29 was a useful marker as I moved from Sadr to P Cyg. A times with the OIII filter and averted vision I thought I could detect faint nebulosity but it could easily have been imagined!

M31 - Looking really bright and the extent of the galaxy was much more noticeable compared to previous viewings. M32 was an easy spot. A couple of times when using averted vision, I thought I detected the faint fuzzyness of M110 but not enough to mark it down as being seen.

With clouds rolling in and the sky brightening, I decided to call it a night. It was probably the best nights astronomy I've ever experienced. All my eyepieces were used on multiple occasions. The Lagoon nebula didn't disappoint. I'd take a guess that I was pushing closer to 5 NELM with lots of fainter stars in the Milky Way showing. I could easily follow it's path through the sky. Can't wait to see what the next month has in store for me!

 

[swamp thing]

Nice list of objects you saw there Neil  

Thanks for sharing. 

[faulksy]

what a good session you had. nice one matey

[Littleguy80]

29 minutes ago, swamp thing said:

Nice list of objects you saw there Neil  

Thanks for sharing. 

Thanks Steve. Was a fantastic night. I've really been inspired by all the other observing reports on some of these objects so was pleased to be able to share my own observations

[Littleguy80]

26 minutes ago, faulksy said:

what a good session you had. nice one matey

Thanks Mike. Best I've ever had

[Cjg]

Great report and good starhopping skills too Neil. 

I start my journey to the Lagoon from M11 the Wild Duck and hop down to the Eagle and then to the Swan, before dropping onto the Lagoon. I'll give your route a try next time I get the opportunity.

(Edit) Just seen you're based in Norwich, if ever you want a tour of Seething Observatory, let me know.

Chris

[domstar]

Great. That was most of my viewing session on Sunday (up until you started on the veil). A lovely piece of sky and I think M 22 is my favourite target at the moment.

[Tyson M]

A fine report indeed!

I have yet to see N.A or Veil , tried from a red zone with a UHC filter to no avail. I don't have an OIII filter. 

I am really hoping to get a good look at lagoon and Trifid here soon. It is very low at 53 degrees north. And after the first week in August,  it gets lower and lower.

I'm hoping to get a chance this sat at a dark site. 

[Littleguy80]

55 minutes ago, Cjg said:

Great report and good starhopping skills too Neil. 

I start my journey to the Lagoon from M11 the Wild Duck and hop down to the Eagle and then to the Swan, before dropping onto the Lagoon. I'll give your route a try next time I get the opportunity.

(Edit) Just seen you're based in Norwich, if ever you want a tour of Seething Observatory, let me know.

Chris

Thanks Chris. I had a look at M11 a few weeks ago and have been wanting to go back for another look. I'll do that and give your route a try too

I'd absolutely love a tour of Seething Observatory. Just let me know when suits you and I'll be there. Thank you so much for offering

[Littleguy80]

55 minutes ago, domstar said:

Great. That was most of my viewing session on Sunday (up until you started on the veil). A lovely piece of sky and I think M 22 is my favourite target at the moment.

I've been wanting to have a proper session on Sagittarius for weeks! M22 is a great target. Based on the way it improved as the sky darkened, I feel the best is still to come

[Littleguy80]

42 minutes ago, Tyson M said:

A fine report indeed!

I have yet to see N.A or Veil , tried from a red zone with a UHC filter to no avail. I don't have an OIII filter. 

I am really hoping to get a good look at lagoon and Trifid here soon. It is very low at 53 degrees north. And after the first week in August,  it gets lower and lower.

I'm hoping to get a chance this sat at a dark site. 

Thank you, Tyson. I have seen the Veil with my UHC but it's really faint compared to the OIII. I picked by OIII up secondhand for a good price. Worth keeping an eye on the classifieds

Your UHC will serve you well on the Lagoon. I thought it looked best through the UHC!

[Stu]

M22 is fabulous, only seen it a few times but it's a great target!

[Littleguy80]

18 minutes ago, Stu said:

M22 is fabulous, only seen it a few times but it's a great target!

I was reading in Turn Left at Orion that it contains half a million stars! Apparently there's a lot of dust in between us and it, without the dust it would be 5 times as bright. Amazing!

As you can see, your reports served as great inspiration, Stu  

[Cjg]

@Littleguy80 Neil, Friday 4th of August you will absolutely want to be at Seething for 19:30hrs, if you can make it, won't be doing much observing as the moon will be bright, but I think that you will enjoy the speaker....afterwards, I'll give you a tour of you like.

Chris

[jetstream]

Great report Neil! and excellent observing

[Littleguy80]

2 hours ago, Cjg said:

@Littleguy80 Neil, Friday 4th of August you will absolutely want to be at Seething for 19:30hrs, if you can make it, won't be doing much observing as the moon will be bright, but I think that you will enjoy the speaker....afterwards, I'll give you a tour of you like.

Chris

@Cjg Sounds awesome, Chris. I'm out with the family during the day on the 4th but should be able to get over to Seething for 7:30 no problem  Thanks again for the kind offer. I'm already looking forward to it!

[Littleguy80]

50 minutes ago, jetstream said:

Great report Neil! and excellent observing

Thanks, Gerry. I think my post on seeing vs observing and all the great responses I received marked a real turning point for me. I definitely spend the majority of my time observing my targets rather than finding them