Deep sky fest !

[cotterless45]

Early set up and the wind was shaking everything . Packed up and at 11.00 the wind had dropped , four hours soon whizzed by giving some surprising deep sky views from the edge of town. The galaxies I gleaned from "The Secret Deep" , a great readable source. 

Showing what a difference aperture and conditions matter , I returned to the open cluster NGC 2420 in Gemini. What a difference ! A beautiful central sparkle held me for some time. It's a Trumpler I1r, moderately rich . It's also old at 2 Billion years, there are few of this age. It lies above our galactic disc and has similar star material to our Sun. It either got ejected from the disc or is a left over from galaxy cannibalism. Such great targets out there ! 

NGC 4147 a globular cluster in Coma Berenices , again an interesting history of post core collapse and blue stragglers.

 

I was very lucky to get the other galaxies , temperature hovered just above freezing with the occasional draught ! I returned to Tegmine in Cancer. Giving a beautiful clean bright split , a delightful end before the Moon climbed too high, under 

Clear skies ! 

Nick. 

[estwing]

Clear nights and galaxy season?...what witchcraft be this?...Nice report Nick, thanks for sharing and clear skies!

[Mark at Beaufort]

Great report Nick and it shows despite the windy conditions its worth observing when we get a cloudless night.

[wookie1965]

Brilliant Nick great sketches as usual I am lucky I have the said book to peruse just waiting for my mount to come back. Even if it was I would not have been able to go out it was blowing a gale no way of keeping the mount steady in that.