The treasures of late May.

[cotterless45]

20 degrees C, no breeze, no dew and a busy young hedgehog ( been called worse ). Kick off 10 through to 1 when cloud filled up the sky. It's that special moment when the planetarium lights dim and you know it's going to be a great show, but isolated !

Waiting for the Summer Triangle to completely rise, I had a look around. Two great bright ISS passes added to the delight.Just how huge does setting Leo look ? It dominated the south western sky. Cassiopeia was hugging the northern horizon. 

The great line between Arcturus and Vega shows the crown of Corona Borealis and the great Keystone. Below Hercules watch out for Ophuichus holding Serpens on each side. Lower in the south east and Libra and a very special star .

Libra. HD140283 (SAO 159459) , the "Methuselah " star , ancient enough to be formed just after the BB. I struggled with the binaries here as it's right over town. The seeing here was wobbly and not great over the sky , even past midnight.

Cepheus. Lovely view at x48 of the colourful triple in IC1396. There's violet and green here.

Draco.Caught the "Cat's Eye", NGC 6543.

Ophuichus .IC 4665, the "Summer Beehive", buzzing with stars and unusual in that it's 15 degrees off the galactic plane. Just a mass of globular clusters here , I went for the higher ones, M9, M10,M12(in a flurry of stars) and M14.

NGC 6633, a beautiful dancing open cluster. 

V Ophuichi, a bright carbon star (SAO 159916).

NGC 6572, the "blue racquetball", huge and deliciously bright, it's light blue.

Serpens.IC 4756, the fabulous "Graff's cluster", so huge ( twice full moon) it wouldn't fit at x30. An unmissable sight.

Vulpecula.M27 and a classic view of this bright beautiful dumbbell in the star field.

Sagitta.M71, this globular cluster appears faint , but easily resolves from x100. At 8-9Billion years old.  It's younger than most, don't be passing it by , spend some time here.

Cygnus. No beginning or ending here , must spend another few nights just on this banquet of delights. However settled for the overlooked M39 with rings of bright stars. NGC 6811, the "hole in the cluster". M29, the "shopping trolley". NGC 6910, the little "rocking horse". Ending up with NGC 6826 , the "blinking planetary", wow it does blink and that most lovely binary 61 Cygni (Piazzi's flying double) SA0 070919. I always imagine this as a trapeze with circus music.

 

A most splendid and mouthwatering few hours, keep observing and keep safe,

Nick.

[bomberbaz]

sounds like your night went similar to mine Nick, except your viewing options seemed better prepared. Good effort.

[John]

Great stuff Nick.

I went for some of those with my 12 inch dob after the Venus / Mercury observing.

I want a refund though, the Blinking Planetary does not blink when observed with a 12 inch !

[wookie1965]

They are most of the targets I wanted to see unfortunately I fell down the stairs Tuesday and not been in a fit state do anything.  Does anyone know a Priest so they can perform a exorcism on me I need something.

[F15Rules]

Sorry to hear that Wookie..

I do hope you feel better soon 🙂

Dave

 

[Jiggy 67]

Nice report Nick, sounds like a top night. 
I usually pack up for the summer because of the short night and work etc, but I’m seriously considering getting the scope set up again, reports like this worsen the quandary but I really want to get out and observe some of them globs and other summer targets I don’t usually get to see 

[Geoff Barnes]

If I may join in the fun, I had a rare evening of clear skies recently and had a go at finding a new target for me, NGC 3918 The Blue Planetary Nebula in Centaurus. I had tried once before with my Synscan GoTo but without success, but after studying the sky chart on StarWalk 2 (it isn't listed on my basic SkySafari app for some reason) I felt confident of finding it just above Crux. Using the !2 inch Dob manually I centred the finderscope in the required area and with the Baader zoom on 24mm could see what appeared to be a pale blue star, but it was bigger, more like Neptune but fuzzy. Changing to 8mm it was an obvious small round disc, pale bluish grey and about the size of Mars. Even with the Morpheus 6.5mm no other details visible but a pretty thing nonetheless and I always get a bit of a buzz out of seeing a new target.  

[Trikeflyer]

On 21/05/2020 at 12:38, wookie1965 said:

They are most of the targets I wanted to see unfortunately I fell down the stairs Tuesday and not been in a fit state do anything.  Does anyone know a Priest so they can perform a exorcism on me I need something.

Hope you are OK, those targets will still be there when you’re fit again. Best wishes 

steve

[wookie1965]

9 minutes ago, Trikeflyer said:

Hope you are OK, those targets will still be there when you’re fit again. Best wishes 

steve

Thanks Steve,

                       I have two bad discs and arthritis in my spine one disc is bulging causing sciatica but I am on new tablets which combined with nerve tablets I was on top of the pain and looking forward to going out.

Then halfway down stairs my back decided my leg wasnt there leg give way I came crashing down no idea when I am going get out now. Thank you for wishes I appreciate that.

Best wishes 

Paul

Edited May 22, 2020 by wookie1965

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

On 21/05/2020 at 12:38, wookie1965 said:

They are most of the targets I wanted to see unfortunately I fell down the stairs Tuesday and not been in a fit state do anything.  Does anyone know a Priest so they can perform a exorcism on me I need something.

A big giant bag of cotton wool to wrap your delicate frame in may be more useful than a priest. 😉

Take it easy.

 

I enjoyed reading that report Nick ta.