Delights of a summer night.

[cotterless45]

Dark enough to be useful at midnight. After creeping past the noisy hedgehogs busy feeding , looked up and around to the south. Surprising view of the top of Sagittarius, this was going to be an area to explore. 

Saturn. Delightfully open with Cassini and the dark band to the disc. Rings are wide open giving a good band for it to sit on. Settled well as it climbed , showing several moons ,taking x200. 

Messiers. A great sight starting with M17, even without filters , very obvious. The swan appeared with an Oiii filter at x50. Always a treat and not at all low down, sitting in a lovely star field. M27 gave a glorious glow filtered. Even signs of the Eastern Veil NGC 6995-2. M18 ,the diffuse glow of M11 ("wild duck") showed as the brightest of these clusters.

M24 "star cloud" showed several binaries in its inclusive cluster ,NGC 6603. These include Sh263, Howe 42 and Sh 264. Higher up to M24 , a mass of stars , but no nebula.

M22 began to resolve , superb globular followed later by M2, M28 was very pale. M25 showed a dense core and star field. M23 showed a fine scattering of stars. As did the superb Serpens "Graff's", IC 4756. By 1 am, the whole of Pegasus was up in the north east. 

Sagittarius. Some lovely multiple stars here, most I had not seen before. S716 and 715 presenting a "double double", at 19h17.7. -15 58'. Very impressed by the multiple pi Sagittarii.  Plenty of lovely orange colour in 54 Sag. More colour in the multiple μ (Mu). Quite an amazing group of stars arranged here.

Really surprised how very bright Mars is, huge and glowing. Bouncing around and wobbling in the fov. Some detail at x120-150. Suggestion of dark  areas and that glimpse of ice cap.

Superb summer session, under clear skies !

Nick.

 

[Pig]

Nice report Nick ?the foecast for tonight looks promising so hopefully I can have a go at some of your targets.

[Stu]

Superb night Nick! Wish I could have stayed up later but its a great sign for all the lovely treasures coming our way!

[wookie1965]

Had a nightmare last night everything went wrong alignment everything tried for 1.5 hrs give up.

[Eastman]

Great report Nick, nice objects and even some messiers on a short summer night.

[Patbloke]

Nice work Nick!!  those sketches are amazing as always,

All your targets listed are for my session tonight! (might have trouble with the southern views though as the garage wall will be in the way low down...) Anyway, I'm setting up in Oxfordshire tonight (Cat sitting again) I've got my new Moon Atlas ready for some early evening daylight grabs continuing the Lunar 100 which I only started last night... Talking of which -

Last night was amazing couldn't stop staring at the targets - The Straight Wall, Thebit, Alphonsus and those Apennine mountains (breathtaking) I also got the Apollo 15 landing site which you gave me as an objective a while ago. I have to say the Fathers day present of the Moon Atlas is a joy and gives Lunar observing a real purpose! 

Also, tonight I'm very excited as I have reinvested some pending hobby money from the sale of a DSLR 450D and lenses (Sale pending on eBay by the way BARGAIN!!) into a new ZWO ASI120MC-S from FLO (Great service James thank you) which I'm going to test out later... I've got some great 360 degree pics of my daughters kitchen ceiling so far, but I basically have not got a clue what I'm doing but going to have a go on some lunar targets regardless...

This hobby is weird in that things don't always go to plan; we have good nights and we have not so good nights... But what a great way to spend the night ?