Finally clear skies and an amazing night!

[Kon]

Finally, I managed some decent observing after nearly 1 month of clouds and rain. Starting with the crescent moon while the Dob was cooling down, gave me hope of a good night. The skies looked full of stars with very good seeing. I knew it will be a great viewing night when I could see the whole Milky Way arch from my back garden (I took a few shots and I will try stack them tomorrow); I am attaching a single frame below wit ha couple of satellites photobombing it; that cloud on the right did not spoil the fun and moved out of the way quickly. I started the night revisiting some old favourites and a couple of new targets. M57 looked really bright and the ring was clearly defined (no central star). I then moved to Cygnus to look for a few new targets; Cocoon nebula, it looked rather diffuse with not much structure to it. M39 and the nearby NGC7082 looked really nice in the same FOV at low mag. I then put my OIII filter and looked for the Crescent that had evaded before. I could make a nice clear arch almost making a flattened circle. I then revisited Veil. I had seen it before when it was low at the sky; OMG OMG!!! Absolutely stunning! I could make its really nice intricate structure looking like ribbons; I followed it from East to West. The structure looked exactly the high resolution APs. The night got even better moving south of the Milky Way. Revisited the Swan, Eagle, Lagoon and Trifid. My favourite is still the Swan.

As I was planning to pack away, Jupiter and Saturn made an appearance. I recently purchased a second hand ES 82 degrees 6.7mm EP. The views were stunning. Very sharp and the objects take longer to get out of view (I have decided to upgrade my BST eyepieces slowly after using my first 'premium' EP). It bar lowed quite well for Saturn and the casino devision was clearly observable. Jupiter showed nice banding.

Overall, I am super happy and I think it has been one of the best sessions in terms of seeing conditions for a long long time (I think my last decent skies was back in late winter when my OTA was frozen). I hope the rest of you managed some clear skies. The rest of the week is looking promising as well.

 

[xvariablestarx]

I am hoping for clear nights at this weekend, I have some eyepieces to test out.

[Voyager 3]

You have magical backyard sky Kon ! Very lucky. 👍 

[F15Rules]

Lovely report and photo!☺️👍

I can sense your enthusiasm, and totally understand after such a long spell of endless poor observing conditions at night.

Thanks for sharing.

Dave

[John]

Excellent report of what sounds like a superb Summer session

Lets hope for more over the coming nights !

[wookie1965]

Brilliant forecast was clear here from 11pm. At 11pm this is the sky 15 minutes later this.

[Pixies]

10 hours ago, Kon said:

Finally, I managed some decent observing after nearly 1 month of clouds and rain. Starting with the crescent moon while the Dob was cooling down, gave me hope of a good night. The skies looked full of stars with very good seeing. I knew it will be a great viewing night when I could see the whole Milky Way arch from my back garden (I took a few shots and I will try stack them tomorrow); I am attaching a single frame below wit ha couple of satellites photobombing it; that cloud on the right did not spoil the fun and moved out of the way quickly. I started the night revisiting some old favourites and a couple of new targets. M57 looked really bright and the ring was clearly defined (no central star). I then moved to Cygnus to look for a few new targets; Cocoon nebula, it looked rather diffuse with not much structure to it. M39 and the nearby NGC7082 looked really nice in the same FOV at low mag. I then put my OIII filter and looked for the Crescent that had evaded before. I could make a nice clear arch almost making a flattened circle. I then revisited Veil. I had seen it before when it was low at the sky; OMG OMG!!! Absolutely stunning! I could make its really nice intricate structure looking like ribbons; I followed it from East to West. The structure looked exactly the high resolution APs. The night got even better moving south of the Milky Way. Revisited the Swan, Eagle, Lagoon and Trifid. My favourite is still the Swan.

As I was planning to pack away, Jupiter and Saturn made an appearance. I recently purchased a second hand ES 82 degrees 6.7mm EP. The views were stunning. Very sharp and the objects take longer to get out of view (I have decided to upgrade my BST eyepieces slowly after using my first 'premium' EP). It bar lowed quite well for Saturn and the casino devision was clearly observable. Jupiter showed nice banding.

Overall, I am super happy and I think it has been one of the best sessions in terms of seeing conditions for a long long time (I think my last decent skies was back in late winter when my OTA was frozen). I hope the rest of you managed some clear skies. The rest of the week is looking promising as well.

 

That is such a cool picture may I ask your camera settings and what were you using to track (if any)?

So many Messier objects (and others) there that I still haven't observed properly, as my Southerly horizon is bright and quite high. Hoping to get out at the end of this week to somewhere suitable.

Cheers.

Edited July 14, 2021 by Pixies

[Kon]

36 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

Brilliant forecast was clear here from 11pm. At 11pm this is the sky 15 minutes later this.

I hope you managed some seeing last night. The weather is so unpredictable these days. CO was showing orange for me last night but the skies were crystal clear.

[Kon]

27 minutes ago, Pixies said:

That is such a cool picture may I ask your camera settings and what were you using to track (if any)?

So many Messier objects (and others) there that I still haven't observed properly, as my Southerly horizon is bright and quite high. Hoping to get out at the end of this week to somewhere suitable.

My Milky Way was taken on a standard tripod using my Nikon D3200, f 3.5 (using the standard 18-50mm lense), iso 800 and 20s exposure. No post editing or anything.

I hope you get some clear skies this week.  LP in Edinburgh must be a problem for you, especially if you are near the city centre. I used to live in St Andrews and the skies are quite bad even getting out of Edinburgh (N direction).

[wookie1965]

18 minutes ago, Kon said:

I hope you managed some seeing last night. The weather is so unpredictable these days. CO was showing orange for me last night but the skies were crystal clear.

No nothing was setting up when the cloud rolled in hoping tonight will be better thanks.

[Epick Crom]

Nice to hear you finally got some clear skies! Your shot of the milky way looks awesome