NAN to LBN 365

[jetstream]

A short note on tonight's observing. The sky started off black as the ace of spades and crystal clear...off the to hill I go to set up and by the time I got everything up there and observed for 15 min or so... it got worse?

The MW lost its edge, the nebula I was looking at went pale so I turned around to look and got the answer- the aurora! The SQM-L gave a 21.3 mag sky but right on the aurora 20.5, it lit up the sky for sure. Off now for the camera. By the time I got that up there it had faded lol!

Back to the 200mm f3.8 and 21.6 mag skies.This scope showed the NAN superbly bright and detailed with the 20mm Lunt/Lumicon UHC, what a combo. The bridge between the tip of the gulf over to LBN 365 was terrific tonight, almost totally complete, best showing so far.

After observing seriously for an hour or so it was time to sky cruise the favorites- one thing I noted- M27 showed a very nice green in the apple core tonight with no filter. M13's prop, Wild duck cluster, the Dark nebs up by Tarazed, IC 1318, Crescent, Pacman,all great, M31 almost drowned out its little companion in glow and M33 gave a good presentation of itself. After viewing these and a few more I called it quits, quite pleased with the evening really.

[Stu]

'Quite pleased'? I would be leaping for joy  lovely night Gerry. I've never seen any colour in M27 at all.

[Special K]

Very nice results!  It's a fantastic time of year for the NAN and other environs near zenith as the nights get darker!  As always envy your dark skies and enthusiasm  

Having said that, my ED80 is propped onto the EQ5 in readiness of next opportunity to view the NAN in full.  The bigger scope is good but seems to zoom in too much, though the results on clusters within the complex like NGC6997 are lovely. 

[scarp15]

Trust the aurora to put in an appearance, very nice sky cruising session Gerry, particularly concerning the description of the bridge. Solid cloud and a threat of rain here, cant last forever.  

[alan potts]

I was up and about at 2.00 this morning taking the wife to catch a bus to the airport (she is coming back), saw Orion rising, winters coming

Nice report as always from you.