Galaxies spotted ! From town.

[cotterless45]

Stunning clarity by eye , but lots of high twinkling . Quite stunned by Zeta Cassiopeia which flashed on and off like a beacon.

Early kick off and south to Capricornus , sitting east of Saturn. Poorly placed over town with wobbly seeing , fireworks and glow , who could ask for more !

Motivated by a report from a great report from cloudsweeper , a visit to Capricorn binaries. β2 is an interesting Mercury manganese star and β1 has its own story . There is possibly a quadruple group here. A beautiful grapefruit orange here . I put on an aperture mask ( cardboard with a hole in) to get the colour boost. No chance of any small separations here , but worth finding the open views.

Looking north , good view of our most ancient cluster , NGC 188. Got a smidge from NGC 40 ("bow tie" planetary . Then up to a full Pazmino's cluster in Camelopardalis. Checked out NGC 1502 (" skull and crossbones") and the blinking "blue oyster" NGC 1501 to the base of Kemble's cascade. Miram (η Persei) gave lots of colour.

Seeing as Cassiopeia was high and filling with stars , gave a bright Perseus galaxy a go. NGC 1023 is astoundingly bright , member of the Canes Venatici cloud  , part of the Sagittarius super cluster. Focusing sharp stars and there was the delightful streak that so exites some !  Just a smaller smudge from our local NGC 891. Really a fantastic sight from dark sky areas with a dust lane and halo. Things must be getting better since our streetlights changed to small leds.

Had a look at the star cloud in NGC 7789 ( Cassiopeia) and packed up as thick cloud came into from the west . Lovely views from the Summer Triangle to the rising winter Triangle , under clear skies ! Nick.

[estwing]

It was!!!...though caught a nice view of Andromeda in the bins...clear skies !

[wookie1965]

Clouded out here, anything south I cannot see with that lamp post.

I will look for the others though but I feel this 5" is not showing things as good as it should, looked at Caroline's Rose with it and I was underwhelmed I've seen it better in the Tal.

Great sketches as usual.

 

[Mark at Beaufort]

An enjoyable read as always Nick - some great objects. My local astro society had an observing evening last night in Fownhope just down the road from Lucksall. Lovely clear night with good transparency.

Look forward to seeing you again at Lucksall at the end of next week together with your talk.

[RobertI]

Great report Nick. Interesting to read about the use of an aperture  mask to improve colour - how does this work?