Italy - night five

[Piero]

The weather has changed a lot in the last 7 days passing from 35C to 15C to 25C to 20C with a lot of rain in the first days of September. The last few days the sky was reasonably steady and last night it was clear. 

Before the Moon came out, I was able to observe for about 1.5h through Cygnus, Pegasus, Aquila, and Scutum. M11 (the Duck Cluster, Scutum) was wonderful, revealing plenty of tiny stars and "background dust". A bit of time was spend on the nearby open clusters NGC6704, NGC6683, M26, and globular cluster NGC6712. These were faint, smaller and less attractive than M11. Even so, I find interesting to look around and see what the neighbourhood of a famous target offers.  The Double Cluster (and the red star in between) received a bit of attention too of course! As the sky was slightly more transparent than the nights in the end of August, I decided to attempt the Veil nebula using the 35mm and 20mm eyepieces plus Lumicon OIII. Both the Eastern and Western regions were visible with direct vision, but without detail except for the curved shape of the two parts. The pickering triangle was not visible with DV or AV. Under this light polluted sky, I was actually surprised to manage to see something, so no complain at all! After the Veil nebula, M15 (globular cluster in Pegasus) and M25 (open cluster in Sagittarius) were observed. A long time passed since my last visit to Delphinus. In this little kite-shaped constellation, I observed Gamma Del, a beautiful double star, and the small globular cluster NGC6934. Unfortunately, I forgot to search for the other globular cluster NGC7006. Finally, the Moon came out and the sky was particularly even steadier. The Docter gave me some gorgeous views at 249.6x and 274.6x using the Z barlow with extra 40mm and 55mm spacers, respectively. It was amazing to see different tones of "whites" on rocks, plus the pletora of tiny crater-dots within larger craters. 

[Astro Imp]

Lovely report as usual Piero, you picked out some lovely targets especially M11 and M15. I've really enjoyed your Italian reports, thank you.

[Piero]

38 minutes ago, Astro Imp said:

Lovely report as usual Piero, you picked out some lovely targets especially M11 and M15. I've really enjoyed your Italian reports, thank you.

Thank you Alan.  

It might be the last report as a thunderstorms and rain are expected today and tomorrow over here. 

 

This sunset was shot 1 week ago.

[MarsG76]

Good report, looks like you had a short but great time at the eyepiece.

 

[Piero]

2 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

Good report, looks like you had a short but great time at the eyepiece.

Actually, I started at 8.30pm and finished at 1am

[MarsG76]

Just now, Piero said:

Actually, I started at 8.30pm and finished at 1am

Not that short of a time... great time nonetheless 

[alan potts]

Nice report Piero, the weather had been up and down here the last few days now it seems back to hot again 32 degree days and about 15 early morning.

Alan

[chiltonstar]

Good to see someone has some clear sky - I am at a UK dark site in Cornwall, and the rain has not stopped for a couple of days.

Chris

[alan potts]

20 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

Good to see someone has some clear sky - I am at a UK dark site in Cornwall, and the rain has not stopped for a couple of days.

Chris

Sorry to hear that Chris, we are short on water I would be happy to do a swap with you, sadly here the downside of lots of clear sky is sun, very hot yesterday for Sept, 36 degrees.

[Piero]

On 11/09/2017 at 07:04, chiltonstar said:

Good to see someone has some clear sky - I am at a UK dark site in Cornwall, and the rain has not stopped for a couple of days.

Chris

Is it still raining over there? How long are you staying in Cornwall? 

I returned yesterday from Italy. Lot's of rain over there, but here in Cambridge the sky is clear. Last night a bit of Milky Way was also visible on Cygnus.