Astro safari, top views.

[cotterless45]

Andy , chief honcho of our local club (http://www.roslistonastronomy.org.uk/) appeared for a session. It can be a dilemma with an experienced observer as a guest , either to ask what they'd like to see or present a mixed selection. We had a happy medium. The sky at 9.30 was very still with superb seeing , by 1.30 we had some loss of transparency with moisture picking up light. We kicked off with Aquila , NGC 6781 . Quite huge at x50 with an Oiii filter. NGC 6709 , a huge cluster looked stunning.

Then over a real treat , "Graff's cluster " , IC 4765 in Serpens. This filled two field of views at x50. Andy had never heard of or seen this before. Better was to come in Cassiopeia and Perseus. We struck out agreeing on the 1.1" split of 36 Andromedae , the seeing was that good.

Then iota Cassiopeiae and a new one for Andy , the challenging Psi in Cassiopeia. It would be rude not to visit the Messier's, M103 looked a packed triangle of sparkles. M15 resolved to the outer areas. This is 13.2 billion years old and compacted by a super massive black hole.

Up to the "Blue Snowball", NGC 7662, just stunning. Out of memory , I tried NGC 188 , the almost polar "Ancient one", some 6.2 billion years old and 1800 light years out of the galactic plane . This is the oldest cluster , away from the often disruptive forces of our galaxy. By averted vision , we agreed a sighting . Later when Andy left , the sky improved and I had a sparkling , pop out view !

We looked for colour and triples , getting the lovely triple in IC 1396 and the Garnet star in Cepheus. What stunned Andy was the view of the Eastern Veil at NGC 6995,with the Oiii filter. We had been enjoying views with the six inch frac, but the very bright arc just blew him away.

We returned later to get the lovely companion of 52 Cygni and the flying twins of "Piazzi's", 61 Cygni. At best we had the Cygnus rift by eye signs the Milky Way was pushing towards Cepheus through Cassiopeia.

We hit loads more binaries , agreeing where the companions were, quite fun with fainter companions. We had some good galaxy views with the core of NGC 7331, NGC 1023 and the galaxies in Cassiopeia.

A superb night , it's great to share the views and find challenging targets and first light to many hidden treasures, 

here's to clear skies ! Nick.

[estwing]

Top work old boy....and a grand and varied tour

[wookie1965]

Great report Nick a couple of doubles there I want to try in the Tal just for comparison. A couple of NGC`s I have not heard of they are going on my list thank`s for posting.