Super Winter Skies!

[Special K]

Clouds didn't roll off till after 9pm here but once the curtains were pulled away, a gloriously dark sky was revealed!  It was an unusual climate with enough breeze to forestall any frost from taking hold, though it was cold enough to warrant it. I've been craving some cold as we haven't had any hard frost in October...but never mind!

The sole purpose of this session was to have a shot at some doubles of any class or complexity, and for the evenings entertainment I chose Camelopardalis. Starting east of Pazmino’s Cluster I landed on Σ396 for an easy First Base. Given the wind I reckoned seeing was going to be limited so reconciled in my mind that loose doubles are just as eye pleasing as tight ones, if not more!  This was a delightful sight at 20" separation.  Moving on I found Webb2 to be incredibly similar to a small scale Albireo. Tougher targets like 400 and 389 didn't yield results in that breeze. 

Then I went cruising towards Pazminos for the first time and was delighted. Into the area of the Heart and Soul (IC1848 and 1805) was familiar ground and I noted the distinct change of appearance in the background sky. I left the O-III in the case for now. Mistakenly I went north and was lost in a starfield I could not recognize: it was a bit like the double cluster which made me think I had gone mad!  I might have been as far away as NGC663/659 but hard to tell. I'll go back. Returning to Stock 2 I finally panned down to the Double Cluster, and it blew my socks off!!!  It almost always does, but last night was particularly dark for home base. That was a glittering jewel box for sure and even with the 31mm the background was velvety black. 

By this time the wind had died down and returning to the doubles scene was fruitful with the newly acquired 6mm Fujiyama ortho...my latest experiment!  Σ385 refused to give up its dim companion at 2.3" but I was shocked to see that I could cleanly resolve Σ384:  a binary 8.1 & 8.9 at 1.9". I put this down to the absence of glare. I'll go out of my way to observe these faint ones in the future. I spent a lot of time doing the above manoeuvers, but managed a few more highlights:

OΣΣ36 for another very loose double.

Σ485 in NGC1502 is an anchor at one end of Kembles Cascade.  Very nice twin.

ΟΣ486 in Cepheus is another loose target. By then I was too cold to function, despite M52 looking quite appealing.  Need more skies like that one!  Thanks for reading.

 

[Mr niall]

Nice report (although I’m not ashamed to admit it seems so long since I’ve been out without at least a half moon for company that it was so dark I got a little spooked!)