Down to Corvus. Hedgehog action !

[cotterless45]

Waiting for four stars of Corvus, by eye, Gienah, Algorab, Alchiba and β. Got there after a shaky start . As soon as the sky darkened , hey , 19.47 sqm, massive amounts of billowing white cloud. Hang on , bonfire smoke from a few houses away. Just covered the sky , so I sat and watched our white Walker hedgehog for a while, aah !

Back to some darkness, tried south over the town with NGC 3242 "ghost of Jupiter". M48 (NGC 2548) , Messier's lost cluster looked stunning with two long bright chains in a full wide view.

Had some slight galaxy views, M 104 (Sombrero ) giving a fine bright view , fascinating "L" shaped line of stars nearby. Just fuzz to M60, M87,M88, M100. But I did catch both M84 and M86 in the wide field together. NGC 4725 and NGC 4565 in Coma Berenices gave similar views.

Back to Corvus, now high enough to get M68 and the antenna galaxies NGC 4038 if you have the aperture and dark skies. Four stunning binaries, 

Σ 1604 , triple with a delicate close companion.

Σ 1659, amazing view of a triple triangle caught in a larger triangle. Quite a challenge to get the complete inner triangle.

Delta Corvi, Algorab, a show piece nice and easy. Colours reported as strange , up to purple .

Σ 1669, a fine bright pair of eyes.

Played around with Hercules , but little contrast from the north east. Try Corvus and Crater, these lesser constellations can surprise under clear skies !

Nick.

[mapstar]

Nice to get out Nick.

Those hedgehogs can be noisey little critters especially munching on doritos in your tent in the middle of the night!!!!

I will try to get down in this area when I finally get the scope out. 

[wookie1965]

Some hard doubles there I wont be going for hoping to get out tonight just a couple of hours if I can going to hit some easy ones in Leo, Leo Minor and Sextans one constellation never tried before.

Great sketches as usual some good galaxies I know i wont see them as cannot look south with this blooming light, 

[Paz]

Great report, some good doubles to look out for there. I've not seen any hedgehogs yet this year but usually encounter quite a few over the summer.