Planets for a guest !

[cotterless45]

What to show a guest while waiting for Saturn and Jupiter ? I set up the manual CG5 with Vixen 102 old school on the grass . Patbloke arrived and we had a couple of useful hours before it was planet kick off. I kept to the Neq6 and C6r. Nice to compare views.

Globular included M3, M5 and M15 off of Enif. Not much contrast , so switched to the very pleasing "Blue Snowball" NGC 7662. What lovely blue views. Camelopardalis gave NGC 1502 (" skull and crossbones cluster" ) with the blue oyster of NGC 1501 nearby.

Over to Cassiopeia for cluster fest , NGC 7788, NGC225,NGC 7788, the owl 457, NGC 654 and a very sparkling M52.

Serpens gave the huge scattered "Graff's cluster", a sparkling sight some two full moon diameter.

M27 gave an amazing summer view, without filter , showing its shape and brighter end.

M11 gave a poor sparkle of stars and I struggled to get M17 swimming on the star field. Transparency wasn't great with no stars of Capricorn showing . However Saturn was sitting there and gave stunning views with the clear Cassini and a darker outer band on the wide open rings. We spent some time here.

Jupiter climbed above the roof tops and the seeing improved to give multiple bands including a thin equatorial. The darker northern belt gave filaments and ripped band areas. The best view came from a 13mm Nagler in a x2 Vixen triplet Barlow ( old school).

Pat used his Meade 5000 Hd set to great effect. Getting great views with a 3.5mm at about x280.

Views settled at x200-x240 . Just let the sharpness come through without fiddling with focus.

We had further company with scurrying hedgehogs. A mighty warm night , with the bonus  of shared superb views added.

Careful now , 

Nick.

[Les Ewan]

Hedgehog visits used to be a regular occurrence during my Summer observing  sessions, not now though.☹️. In my area they seemed to have vanished, so much so that I don't even see them flattened on my local public roads anymore!

[wookie1965]

Brilliant Nick I have wrote a few of those clusters down for my list couple of firsts for me in Camelopardalis.

[Patbloke]

Another great night, thanks Nick. I need these refreshers every so often 

It was really good going old school with the CG5 using the slow motion hand controls and the Vixen large home made focus wheel you have fitted on her.. It took me back to when I first started observing with my little Skywatcher 114p, following the planets

Also your EQ6 Pro is some mount fella, it's much quieter than my AVX and I'm pretty sure it would carry the weight of a human holding binoculars 🙂

One thing that is always good to remember is that once you get your object is in focus, spend time observing it, get a chair get comfortable at the EP relax and you'll be amazed how the view changes with averted vision and looking straight on over several minutes. 

Top work... nice hedgehogs mate but I'm going to have to trump you with Sonic which is one of my regular visitors, which is the size of as mall dog and can move at supersonic speeds..... He nearly knocked me off my chair speeding by last night while I was taking water under the night sky :-0