Wonderful clear sky last night (10/07/18)

[steppenwolf]

Last night I had to stay up late to test a piece of review equipment and I couldn't believe my luck because it was one of the clearest skies I have seen for some months. The Milky Way arched from the NE across the sky before me and it was so strong that it could have been a ribbon of cloud!

NGC 7000 was clearly visible with the naked eye and I had to tear myself away from the sight of it to get on with the main event. Having got the equipment up and running, I had an hour of freedom and was tempted to fire up my own observatory and capture some more Ha data from Pickering's Triangle which is currently a WIP. However, that glimpse of the North America Nebula made me reach instead for my Carl Zeiss Jena 10 x 50 binoculars. This was a good decision and I immersed myself in 'faint fuzzy' searching until - alarmingly quickly - the first hour was up!

Memorable observations included M13, M92, the nebulous region around Sadr, Albireo (surprisingly good through the binoculars), The Andromeda Galaxy and finally my favourite, The Coathanger asterism (Collinder 399) but there were many others.

The review test went well too. What a fantastic evening!

[Stu]

Fantastic Steve. I’ve never seen the NAN with the naked eye, the transparency must have been excellent! Must have been a lovely sight

 

[steppenwolf]

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

Fantastic Steve. I’ve never seen the NAN with the naked eye, the transparency must have been excellent! Must have been a lovely sight

I am very luck, Stu, this is the second time I have seen it this way! The sky really was exceptional for nearly an hour and then it tailed off.

[John]

Great report Steve

Lately we seem to have lost our clear skies here. It's still hot and there is no rain but each evening for the past few the hazy clouds spread across the sky from around 10:00 pm obscuring most astro targets. Frustrating but it is good to read reports like yours to keep the "appetite whetted" for when we get a good one here

Thanks for posting

[steppenwolf]

15 minutes ago, John said:

It's still hot and there is no rain but each evening for the past few the hazy clouds spread across the sky from around 10:00 pm obscuring most astro targets.

In essence, this is what we have been experiencing here throughout this hot period, John, although to be fair, the cloud has been VERY thin but enough to make narrowband images 'noisy'. I have started several imaging runs recently at 23:00 but by about 01:30 to 02:00 the operating system has detected sufficient cloud build up to make continuing absolutely futile. Last night was the exception with NO thin cloud until well gone midnight when there were just sporadic streamer type clouds building but by then, I had achieved my goal.

A night to remember and one to remind me that it isn't all about imaging!

[Sunshine]

Those nights are few and far apart unfortunately, i have been very lucky so far this season, save for the odd storm, i have had a clear night almost every single night.

Nice report, may you have many more of those great nights!

[Demonperformer]

Sounds like a great evening ... on to treasure.

[des anderson]

When a night like this comes along you just don`t know how lucky we are, only a couple of times have I had nights  like this,and it`s one that you never forget. Des