May 27, 2020: Planets, the moon, lots of fuzzies and a comet

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Drove over to Aduarderzijl, north of Groningen again yesterday evening and arrived early enough to spot Venus close to the horizon. I got out the 16x80 binoculars and could easily make out the crescent, but it was quite distorted by atmospheric refraction. I then picked up Mercury, and admired the crescent moon with earthshine. I then took some photos with, first with the phone

and as can be seen, the conditions were rather better than a few days ago

I then shot some more with the camera which I will share later.

When more stars came out I got out the binoculars again, and started hunting some Messiers, starting with M3, followed by M13, M92, and M65 and M66. I then admired the moon a bit more, before returning to the Messier hunt, quickly bagging M5, M4, M10, M12, and M14 (it was really turning into a night of globulars). Just to get a little sequence of of Messiers from M10 to M14, I also hunted down M11, which is of course an open cluster, but almost looks like a globular in bins, it is so compact. Moving to Sagitta, I got M27, which was a real stunner in these big bins, and M71 (small, but neat little globular). I tried M57, and could spot the nebula, but not really resolve it. Moving to Ursa Major and environs, I had a go at M81 and M82 (very nice indeed) and M101 (easy despite the skies not being fully dark), and of course M51. I tried NGC 2903, close to the moon, so I had little hope, but I could actually make out a faint glow in the right spot. Skies must have been really transparent, because even M4, which was low in the sky with some city lights interfering, and which is one of the more "anaemic" globulars was really easy. Between these observations, I tried finding coment C/2020 F8 SWAN a couple of times. and each time I thought I spotted a faint haze in the right spot, but it was too faint to be sure. Towards 0:35, after a quick look at the Double Cluster, NGC 663 and M103, I returned to the spot to the right of Capella, and could make out a fuzzy haze with ceertainty. Quite small, no tail apparent, and a far cry from the naked eye comet some had expected, but definitely there. As it was really turning could, with quite a string wind from the north, I decided to call it a night and packed the gear up, and drove back home.

[mark81]

That's a very successful binocular session.  Some really nice Messier's also, I must have another go at m101 - it's always one I mean to have a look at but never do...

Mark

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

32 minutes ago, mark81 said:

That's a very successful binocular session.  Some really nice Messier's also, I must have another go at m101 - it's always one I mean to have a look at but never do...

Mark

Cheers, Mark. M101 is generally one I use to test sky transparency. It is such a diffuse object, that can be very hard when there is the slightest haze, and then some nights suddenly spiral arms can be spotted in the C8.