Helios Apollo 15x70 session - never have I ever

[Victor Boesen]

Found something that beautiful without looking for it.

yesterday I had my first light with my new Helios Apollo which you can find here. I had some very nice observations of some objects I had never seen before. However there was some limitations. I was observing through a window opening, but I was still satisfied with the sudden and unexpected clear skies. Yesterday was also very cloudy and at had been raining for quite som time, but the Danish weather showed its mysterious way of acting and I was rewarded with crystal clear skies at 11:15pm.

Out I went, with the new binocular and my new filters. Firstly I visited some object I had also seen the day before such as the rosette and the Orion Nebula, which was a good way to start off the session. Then I looked at the double cluster in Cassiopeia which was filled with sharp stars throughout the whole fov. I wanted to try to observe the soul and heart nebula with the two filters in place, but without luck, however I did find a nice looking “x” asterism which filled most of the fov.

At this time it was about 00:30am and I was just looking for fuzzies with the naked eye, and the bins. The beehive was visible naked eye as a blurry patch viewed with averted vision. Through bins it looked amazing filling almost the entire fov. I visited the Pleiades a couple of times as well, but without any nebulously seen.

looking near zenith just above Orion and east of the Pleiades I noticed something blurry naked eye, and at this moment I had the filters fitted after observing the rosette, so when I turned the bins towards the fuzzy I was rewarded with many small fuzzy spots with these being both the flaming star nebula, IC410 surrounding the star cluster ncg1893, ic417, ngc1931 and the starfish cluster. The view was amazing, with fuzzies all over filling an area larger than the binocular fov. The flaming star looked very sharp and contrasty(astronomers are good at finding their own words aren’t they;-) on the east side with the west side fading away into the darkness of the sky. I kept observing this area of sky until it was about 1:15am and a cover of clouds came by and spoiled the fun...

After two “accidental” clear skies under the clear and dark skies of my grandparents I am a happy chap

Clear skies, merry Christmas, and a happy new year!!

Victor

[MarsG76]

Nice report... clear sky surprise is a welcome occurrence.... 

[Victor Boesen]

23 minutes ago, MarsG76 said:

Nice report... clear sky surprise is a welcome occurrence.... 

Thank you very much. They are indeed very welcome!