Out again with my new 200P Dobsonian

[PaulM]

Finally some clear skies - got 3 hours of observing in from  09:00 to 12:00

Jupiter - was low and still twilight but could clearly see banding and three moons - wife was impressed

Once things got a bit darker I observed the following and while doing so have come to appreciate the Telrad finder and got used to star hopping to find the more isolated\elusive DSOs using the Star Atlas. 

Was surprised at how many meteors flew across the EP while observing asI saw four

I've rated what I observed out of 5 stars

I also noticed that observing with my weaker left eye rather than my stronger right was better - could see fainter areas of nebula and galaxies and distinguish more clearly individual stars in the globular clusters - very strange !

Hercules

M13  ***** Quite open globular cluster, can make out individual stars around the edge and center, looks to be thousands of stars and seems very dense almost nebulous at the center. Best in 15mm EP and 2x Barlow

M92 **** Dense globular cluster, can distinguish individual stars around the edge, nice in the  8mm EP and barlow

Lyra

Epsilon Lyrae **** - double double Nice to view and easy to distinguish the binary stars

M57 ***** Ring Nebula. Easy to locate and you can see the ring clearly and also see the red and green. Very nice object to observe, cannot see center star

Cygnus

Alberto *** Double star. You can clearly see they comprise of a bright yellow and a dimmer (but bright) blue companion

Vulpecula

M27 ** Dumbell Nebula - very faint and hard to distinguish a shape and cannot see any colour but looks brown and is dumbell in shape

Ursa Major

M81 & M82 *** Can view both galaxies as fuzzy hazes with brighter centers at the same time using the 15mm EP.  M81 (below M82) looks bigger and looks to be edge on.

Mars - was very bright and was unable to distinguish any surface features or ice caps. Reason maybe that it was just above nearby houses\roofs or would a filter help?

[Louis D]

What, no Saturn viewing?  It's just above the Sagittarius teapot asterism.  It's about halfway between Jupiter and Mars on the ecliptic.  Look for Venus in the evening sky to pick out its phase like the moon.

1 hour ago, PaulM said:

Alberto *** Double star. You can clearly see they comprise of a bright red star and a dimmer (but bright) blue companion

Albirio is generally seen as a distinctly yellow-blue pair.  Try both eyes and see if you see red or yellow on the non-blue one.

[PaulM]

24 minutes ago, Louis D said:

What, no Saturn viewing?  It's just above the Sagittarius teapot asterism.  It's about halfway between Jupiter and Mars on the ecliptic.  Look for Venus in the evening sky to pick out its phase like the moon.

Albirio is generally seen as a distinctly yellow-blue pair.  Try both eyes and see if you see red or yellow on the non-blue one.

Your right of course notes were wrong yellow-blue pair

[westmarch]

Nice report Paul. I must confess you seem to see colours that escape me. 

I struggled with the different orientation of stars from the RACI to the Dob inverted view  And so gave up on the Pocket Sky Atlas.  I have found Sky Safari to be an invaluable aid to star hopping - it is easy to flip orientation and it overlays different eyepiece FOVs.

Glad you have found something that works for you  

John

[RobertI]

Nice report, some nice objects there, sounds like you are having a lot of success with your scope. I find colours are tricky, especially with doubles, and what I see doesn't always reflect the 'book' colours. I've never seen colour in M57, but then I've never looked for it as I never expected to find any. 

[Stu]

A very successful session Paul, that TelRad is obviously working well for you.

M82 is the more obviously edge on galaxy out of the M81/82 pair, known as the Cigar Galaxy. I often prefer it out of the two as it does show some mottled detail in the centre.

I’m with John, I certainly don’t see any colour in M57 so you are doing well, must have young eyes!