Kelling Heath Sept 2017

[Peter Drew]

Had 4 nights from Thursday until Sunday this year. My main night time instrument was a 8" reflecting binoscope that I cobbled up from an old pair of F6 OOUK ota's. I have to say that each object viewed exceeded my expectations, no doubt largely assisted by the great sky conditions when at their best. A magnification of 50x with a pair of 24.5mm 68 degree FOV eyepieces, the popular DSO's were nicely framed. The globulars M13, 92, 15 and 71 in Sagitta were well resolved without averted vision. M57 was very bright but small, the ghostly image of M27 however was much larger and looked like a waisted cotton wool ball floating in a sea of diamonds. The Double Cluster just squeezed into the field and was certainly the prettiest. M31 and M45 didn't quite fit in, we had a 4" Tak for that pleasure! The first surprise was M51, often elusive back at base, this time although lowish, was instantly obvious, the two main swirls connected by the "bridge" gave a strong impression of being spiral without relying on preconception. The biggest surprise of all though was the Veil, pointing the binoscope roughly in the right area and sweeping more in hope than conviction it suddenly appeared with the main curve filling the field like a diffused con trail, this without filters!  Based on this success I'll build a proper one for next year.   

[Knighty2112]

Well done. Sounds like a promising start with it. I’m at a Lucksall in a few weeks, and hoping for good, clear skies there too to really get stuck in with the scopes I’m going to take, and my binos too!  

[paulastro]

I had the pleasure of using Peter's 8 inch binoscope and fully concur with his comments.

The Veil Neb was indeed impressive, and better than I expected.  For me though, M51 stole the show, particularly as it wasn't at a good altitude when we observed it.  As soon as I looked at it I could see the two main components, each with it's central  condensation and the bridge of material joining the two.  Also more surprising to me was the spiral structure in the large component which was immediately apparent when I had no expectations of seeing it. 

Using this instrument was a pleasure, it was easy to adjust for each user and the star image were really good, it was excellent in every way.

The sky was indeed really good, it seemed as good at times as I have ever seen at Kelling.  The views of M31 and it's components were as good as I can remember, when seen in both a Takahashi 100 mm and even better in a 120ED Equinox. (both 900mm focal length, 24mm Hyperion)  M110 looked bright and large, as good as I can usually see M31 itself at home.  The detail and extent of M31 were most impressive, with some of the dust lanes easy to see and set it a stunning backdrop of stars.

Ah well, back to more mundane views until September 6th next year!