Rural France 15x70s report +21p spotted!

[Mr niall]

Well we’ve been in deepest darkest France for a week now (more or less equidistant between Toulouse and Bergerac). Daytime temperatures are hovering around 35 and the nights are gorgeous but have only had about 3 really good observing sessions due to the haze that seems to accumulate during the day / evening, although was in possibly the most incredible thunderstorm of my life on Tue night!

Clear-skies reckons this is Bortle 4 but I’d say definitely 3 with many features of a two.... as a result my week has mainly been flying round with the bins ticking stuff off lists! Andromeda is a naked eye target with averted vision here - and we get this incredible panorama of Venus-Jupiter-Saturn-Mars about 11pm across the valley.

I think the only disappointment is my equipment, definitely beginning to notice the shortcomings of my Skymaster 15x70s - for example couldn’t really resolve anything in M11, and flare horrible over mag -1/0 BUT they were £50 and have had an absolute hammering over the last week (out every day  nature spotting, keep finding them on the floor, or the patio, or covered in mud! )  so can’t complain!

Anyway so far have bagged (as new targets) M11 m8  m20, m21, m23, m24,  m17, m18, m25, and probably a few others. Have spent a lot of time around Ursa Major but can only just pick up the faintest hint of M51 and nothing else in the area ?. M81 and M82 visible but no definition.

main highlights came last night - the double cluster was spectacular, almost seemed 3D! Always a fave in my 15x70s! 

Bagged comet 21p - was v faint in fact it was only the tail that gave it away, about a degree and a half I think, head visible with AV.

no clear skies forecast tonight.

any suggestions for targets welcome!

[Special K]

Sounds fantastic!  Just out of curiosity, are you working from a mount or hand held?  Definitely go for the NAN with those bins!  There are charming open clusters down south that we can’t really pick from the UK, especially around the tail of Scorpius (ζ). I think this is called the Little Scorpion. Can you see the Cats Paw or Butterfly Nebulae?

[FenlandPaul]

Great stuff.  Sounds like quite a haul you’ve had already!.  I agree with @Special K that it’s worth taking a look down south - Scorpius, the southern part of Sagittarius etc, because those extra few degrees of southerly declination get you so much compared to what we get in the U.K.  I’m in the Charente in a week’s time under lovely dark skies and, apart from some lazy tours of the Milky Way and Veil etc, it’ll be down south that I spend most time.

 

Paul

[kerrylewis]

Interesting report. I’m intrigued by your description of comet 21P - a degree and a half tail! Wow! 

[Mr niall]

1 hour ago, Special K said:

Sounds fantastic!  Just out of curiosity, are you working from a mount or hand held?  Definitely go for the NAN with those bins!  There are charming open clusters down south that we can’t really pick from the UK, especially around the tail of Scorpius (ζ). I think this is called the Little Scorpion. Can you see the Cats Paw or Butterfly Nebulae?

Thanks - mixture of hand held and tripod but there’s a couple of loungers on the patio so it’s almost as easy in one of them - to be honest not had a go at butterfly or cats paw will add them to the list!

[Mr niall]

53 minutes ago, kerrylewis said:

Interesting report. I’m intrigued by your description of comet 21P - a degree and a half tail! Wow! 

Thanks @BinocularSky has a great chart but to be honest it’s quite easy to pin down using Cassiopeia as a guide, found it about 6 degrees above double cluster. But!... it is very faint, was looking it it for two or three minutes before I was sure I’d pinned it down. Steve says it’s doable in 8x42s.

[mark81]

Sounds great, Nice report.  Agree with you on the Double Cluster - under dark skies you cant beat it with a nice set of Bins - even 10x50s show it well in rural locations.   Having a little roam around Cygnus is also a real winner.

enjoy

[kerrylewis]

2 hours ago, Mr niall said:

Thanks @BinocularSky has a great chart but to be honest it’s quite easy to pin down using Cassiopeia as a guide, found it about 6 degrees above double cluster. But!... it is very faint, was looking it it for two or three minutes before I was sure I’d pinned it down. Steve says it’s doable in 8x42s.

It’s amazing that you saw the tail at all as it barely shows up on the images I’ve seen. Certainly  no sign of it here with my ‘suburban’ skies.  ?

[Stu]

Nice report Niall. Big binos can be very relaxing on a sunlounger with a dark sky! Those objects down in and around Sagittarius are lovely aren't they, and trawling up the Milky Way from the horizon all the way up to Cygnus and the Veil and NAN is a great way to spend an evening.

You should try to get a widefield frac out with you next time. The DC at higher power under a dark sky is amazing!

[Mr niall]

1 hour ago, kerrylewis said:

It’s amazing that you saw the tail at all as it barely shows up on the images I’ve seen. Certainly  no sign of it here with my ‘suburban’ skies.  ?

I can relate to that - this is my first trip to a really dark site since I took up astronomy 18 months ago. Honestly I’m finding stuff quicker than I can write it down. The milky was is a prime example - it’s a big white cloud snaking across the sky but get nothing at home.  At home due south is looking towards Stafford and I haven’t picked up a single messier within about 7 degrees of Saturn (maybe m20, maybe...) but here I’m falling over them, M71 in Sagitta is an “almost there” but it really jumps out here. Although yesterday the seeing was exceptionally good. I believe 21p is getting better so I’ll keep an eye out and see if it gets brighter - but like I said, I only found it through process of elimination last night but there was nothing else in the area messier wise so must be it (I think ironically I did a reverse Charles Messier - was looking for a DSO and found a comet! ?)

[Mr niall]

6 minutes ago, Stu said:

Nice report Niall. Big binos can be very relaxing on a sunlounger with a dark sky! Those objects down in and around Sagittarius are lovely aren't they, and trawling up the Milky Way from the horizon all the way up to Cygnus and the Veil and NAN is a great way to spend an evening.

You should try to get a widefield frac out with you next time. The DC at higher power under a dark sky is amazing!

Thx Stu, Mrs Niall really wanted me to take the 130p but we had two kids, two dogs (with crates and beds), a tent and 3 weeks luggage to get in the back of an Astra so it didn’t make the final cut (who needs a tent anyway? It’s so nice outside! ?) didn’t spend 16 hours on the M20 though this year though, so that’s a plus!

[Special K]

Just noticed that the amazing Prolemy’s Cluster (M7) was not on your list but you may have bagged it!  This is a must when lower down the globe as you are!  The M6 Butterfly cluster looks interesting here in the charts. Never had a look at this yet though. 

Some nice visual binaries too:

μ1 & μ2 are stunning and lead the way into an explosion of stars towards ζ1 & ζ2. I love this area!!!  At 4.5 degrees it will likely fit into one FOV as well......I’m reading a lot of very interesting reports using 15x70’s and am starting to wonder!  ?