Cracking night tonight !

[John]

I've not got a lot of time tonight for observing but a dark and seemingly transparent sky has tempted me to put the Tak 100 out. Really nice steady seeing and great transparency for DSO's and the planets !

Just whizzing around the favourites but the seemingly small aperture is producing really contrasty views of DSO's. Lots of outer star resolution on M15, some hints of structure in the Blue Snowball, Mirach's Ghost standing out well, M110 popping out of the background sky readily for a 10cm light gathering objective. Even the low M81 and M82 looking fine and M82 looking even more interesting at 80-100x.

Mars showing some surface details and a crisp disk at 250x. Neptune picked out easily from the starry backdrop even at 100x.

Could be a classic until the moon shows up. Probably got the wrong scope out but it's a quick one to put out and cool so I can get straight on with the viewing and enjoying

I'm going to try for the HII region NGC 604 in M33 - don't think I've done that with a 100mm aperture yet ?

Have fun if you are out !

 

[xtreemchaos]

great report John, I got a short look at mars and was clouded out, I could not see much detail  but it wasnt quite dark here. thanks. charl.

[cloudsweeper]

Have fun John.  Rainy here, and anyway I've done well recently.  (And had a few scoops with a pal!)

Doug.

[Yearofthegoat]

☁️ here in Surrey

But supposed to be clear around 11 or so. Might pop out for an hour if possible. I need to check out my guide cam focus and PHD2 setup. Might need longer!

[RichM63]

I'm falling over parked car fogged in, no chance here.

[Davey-T]

Clouds here STILL.

Dave

[paul mc c]

We had that last night in Belfast.....Vega was hardly twinklng and transperancy was excellent....but alas,back to reality tonight,cloudy.

[johnfosteruk]

Gorgeous here, but sadly other duties forbid any practical astronomy

 

[MarsG76]

Great report of what reads like a great night...

[John]

Still pretty good here. Theta Aurigae split very nicely showing both the close very uneven brightness pair and the couple of other stars that make up a triangle formation. Peered south over the top of the house to get nice views of M57 and M27 and the suble globular cluster M71 in Sagitta.

Back to the Pegasus region and M33 was visible even in the 30mm optical finder. Quite extensive and with hints of clumpiness though the scope. The immense star forming region within M33, NGC 604 was quite hard to detect but could be seen with a little averted vision. It's magnitude 12 so a bit of a challenge as a DSO for the 10cm frac even under these decent conditions.

Just had a peek at Uranus looking crisp at high power. Trying to put my finger on what tint Uranus actually shows with a small aperture scope - almost a greenish buff colour tonght I think ? (no jokes about Uranus in the buff please - it's too cold out there !).

Dropping down to split the currently rather low Castor - nice "demonstration" double star for outreach that one. M35 is dimly showing in Gemini but it's low still so not at it's best. Maybe the Eskimo Nebula when that constellation has risen a bit further ?.

Looking at the forecast this might be the best night for a while here so I'll stick at it a bit longer ....

 

 

[David Levi]

Great reports. I've just come in after a night of failures with my 8" reflector so sounds like you've got the right scope out to me. Failures include: Mirach's Ghost, M110, M33 and comet 64P. Mars was shimmering quite a bit at 200x magnification but there were grey smudges on its surface as well as the south polar cap. There seems to be a slight discrepancy with the location of comet 64P/Swift-Gehrels between Stellarium and The Sky Live website but that's academic at the moment as I couldn't see it in either location.

I could do with better skies.

[John]

Just found M76, "The Little Dumbell" or perhaps more aptly with this aperture scope (and no filter) "The Cork Nebula". It does look a little like a ghostly cork shape tonight. Just got to find the "Champagne Bottle" nebula now !

Some nice Auriga open clusters - I always forget which is which though

The "Owl Cluster" NGC 457 near Cassiopeia is an upside down bird - I still prefer the "ET Cluster" for this one, which is also upside down with the frac !

[Star101]

Sounds like you are having a great night there John. Enjoy!

Here, I'm waiting for the skies to clear here. Forecast is to clear up within the hour. Then I will be, hopefully, imaging Rosette Nebula.in Narrowband.

[Mark at Beaufort]

Just come in after an excellent night. I recently purchased a used Skywatcher 150P and this morning I cleaned the primary mirror so tonight was a testing session. 

I started with the Helix Neb using a Castell O-III (best EP - ES68 24mm), then M2, M15 and M13. O-III back on to view NAN and the Veil. Following from Nick's thread this morning I took in a few PNs NGC 1501, 6543, 6826, 7026 and 7662. Whilst viewing NGC 1501 I viewed the Kemble's Casade and the nice cluster NGC 1502.

Ended the session viewing M1 and NGC 253.

So a nice session with a 6" Newt.

 

[John]

Excellent Mark

I think I'm coming towards the end of my session now. The moon is up and it's glow is making the dimmer DSO's shy now. The moon itself looks glorious though at a lovely phase with the terminator running around the curve of the Apennine mountain chain.

M1 is still behind the conifiers but the Plieades look great at low power.  The moons position will make the Eskimo rather difficult to find I think.

It's forecast to get down to 2 degrees tonight at it feels like it but it's been a super observing session all the same

 

 

 

[djpaul]

Only just going out now. Crisp and clear. Orion looks amazing. Got to give the scope time to cool. 

Gonna be a late one lol.

[John]

20 minutes ago, djpaul said:

Only just going out now. Crisp and clear. Orion looks amazing. Got to give the scope time to cool. 

Gonna be a late one lol.

I'm back inside now and warming up with a glass of Shiraz. Orion is looking good but will be there through the Autumn and Winter

[andrew63]

9 hours ago, David Levi said:

There seems to be a slight discrepancy with the location of comet 64P/Swift-Gehrels between Stellarium and The Sky Live website but that's academic at the moment as I couldn't see it in either location.

 Failed a few times with 64P, I use Sky Safari which is usually very good,  Stellarium appears to be about a degree out for anyone looking.

Great session John on a deep and crisp night.

andrew