Dark sky fix

[Size9Hex]

Between the setting sun and rising moon, a short window of cloud free darkness. Not enough to merit the putting the dob into the car I felt, but the 72mm frac and 2.1x binos were loaded with no effort at all and promised terrific wide vistas across the Milky Way.

Mars provided good company while the colour faded in the west and the constellations slowly revealed themselves. Dark regions in the southern hemisphere, hard to pin down. Saturn too and a few easy doubles.

With the sun a moderate 13 degrees below the horizon, what remained of the glow in the west looked no worse than the light pollution dome from town. The Milky Way nicely structured already and still improving. Worth noting for mid-summer I thought.

This was end of the summer though. Sagittarius tipped over, pouring out the last drops.

Fomalhaut appeared, leading me to amble along the horizon and see how far south I could go. A view of Al Dhanab, a blue/white giant in Gru, the crane.

Back to the Milky Way. The enormous Scutum and the smaller Sagittarius star clouds. The rift through Aquila coming together like a zip into Cygnus. Further dark clouds. The fish platter near Gamma Cygni. The funnel cloud. Cassiopeia on the edge of the void. Bright fingers reaching into Cepheus.

The North America Neb, small but bright with a UHC monocle and then stunningly framed with the Pelican in the 24mm eyepiece. 

The Veil, just about unaided in the 24mm, but easier with a filter. I’ll take the view in the 10", but it’s good too see the entire bubble and contemplate the missing star in the middle.

The Gamma Cygni nebula, but not the Crescent, although I didn’t hunt at high magnification. This whole area seems a confusion of knotted texture.

Barnard’s E. Looking for what’s not there.

M33, not quite naked eye, but glimpsed in the 2x binos. In the eyepiece, a large pale oval. Not quite a central bar, but perhaps a cats eye pupil staring back.

M31 and companions. I stepped back in disbelief. Shouldn’t the dust lane be on the other side? Oh... stupid frac...

The Double Cluster and Muscle Man. Kemble’s Cascade. The Coat Hanger. Perhaps a subtle glow of the nebulosity around the Pleiades.

And inevitably, the moon.

[David Levi]

On 28/10/2018 at 22:03, Size9Hex said:

This was end of the summer though. Sagittarius tipped over, pouring out the last drops.

Brilliant! Great report and wonderfully descriptive read.

[scarp15]

Good blend and assortment of observations in the restrictive time frame and neat idea to engage with the small frac on a dark sky trip.