Exciting Discoveries

[Epick Crom]

Hi my fellow stargazers! I just had another incredible observing session with my 10 inch dob. I am still buzzing from the aftermath!

Started at twilight by observing Venus. 343x showed me a large, brilliant white gibbous Shape. No features seen on its dazzling white clouds. Once proper darkness descended it was time for my first target, M13 in Hercules. I took some time identifying the "Keystone" asterism as I'm not all of that familiar with this constellation. After several minutes I located it. First view for me, I can see why it is so highly rated by you northern astronomers. Big, bright and fully resolved. It was only 20 degrees above my horizon, It must look even more spectacular from northern latitudes. 

My tour of the northern skies continued as there was another northern showpiece I had yet too see, M 57 the famous Ring Nebula. After waiting for Lyra to gain more altitude I saw the two stars where M 57 lies in the middle. Oh my word WOW! M 57 is a perfect round ring floating in space! I was blown away by the view to the extent that I got my wife and kids out of the house to see this. They were facinated by the sight as well. This is the most beautiful planetary I've observed so far in our wonderful hobby (passion).I could detect a faint blue colour at higher magnifications. 

Satisfied with observing two famous northern attractions, I then took a trip into Aquila and observed the stunning carbon star V Aquilae and the planetary nebula NGC 6721. Both these objects are close to each other. NGC 6721 has an elongated shape and looks rather diffuse. I hunted around Aquila looking for more of its several planetaries but came up empty.

It was time next to explore a fascinating region of the sky, the area of double stars in Capricornus near Alpha and Beta Capricornia. Alpha Capricorni ( Algedi) is a nice wide double, while Beta (  Dabih) is an attractive double with yellow and blue components. Omicron Capricorni is a beautiful double with almost equal white components, while Sigma Capricorni looked great with a 6th mag primary and a  9th mag companion. Both stars appeared orange. From there I moved up into Sagittarius to view the Little Gem Nebula, NGC 6818. What a wonderful planetary nebula, light blue and almost perfectly round. Just beautiful. It forms a triangle with two fainter field stars.

To close the night I observed Saturn and Jupiter at various magnifications. Saturn looked incredible at 686x, I saw the Cassini Division and lots of details on the globe, including an equatorial cloud band . Titan, Mimas, Tethys and Iapetus were also viewed, with Titan showing a clear orange disk at 534x. Amazing 👌. I then observed Jupiter and caught the Great Red Spot dead centre on the globe. Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto were clear disks at high magnifications, though Jupiter didn't take to well to the high magnification as Saturn. A wealth of details were seen in Jupiter's cloudbands.

It was a special and timeless session, the magic of Astronomy. Thanks for reading and always keep looking up!

Joe

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by Epick Crom

[mdstuart]

Enjoyed reading your post. The sense of wow comes across so clearly.

You do realise you will soon wonder what those objects would look like in a 16 inch dob.

Mark

[Epick Crom]

2 minutes ago, mdstuart said:

Enjoyed reading your post. The sense of wow comes across so clearly.

You do realise you will soon wonder what those objects would look like in a 16 inch dob.

Mark

Hi Mark. Yes I am wondering already! However I've had my 10 inch for 11months now and I haven't even begun to unleash it's full potential, so much more to discover. For now I'm very satisfied with 10 inch aperture, maybe down the road i'd love to get a 16"😍. I don't think I will ever part with my 10" though, I just love it!

[Kon]

Fantastic report. I have been away on holidays abroad for the past week and I am looking forward to some 🔭 time. If only my 8” Dob was portable.

[Epick Crom]

Welcome back Kon, hope you had a wonderful trip and hope you get some quality scope time soon!

[Stardaze]

Love your enthusiasm there. Really enjoyed reading that, it’s nice to be able to hear of your perspective from where you are. We arrived yesterday to our holiday home after a very long drive and whilst the cloud cleared late on, Hercules was directly overhead here at midnight. Really hoping to catch Sagittarius over the week, very low down here on the horizon but it’s the best shot i’ll get.

[Epick Crom]

3 hours ago, Stardaze said:

Love your enthusiasm there. Really enjoyed reading that, it’s nice to be able to hear of your perspective from where you are. We arrived yesterday to our holiday home after a very long drive and whilst the cloud cleared late on, Hercules was directly overhead here at midnight. Really hoping to catch Sagittarius over the week, very low down here on the horizon but it’s the best shot i’ll get.

Thanks Stardaze, we have opposite views of the sky, Sagittarius is overhead for me while Hercules is overhead for you. I hope you get good views of Sagittarius next week👍

[Jiggy 67]

Excellent report as always Joe......I'm impressed that you can get to x686 magnification, you must have really steady skies at the moment. M57 really is a wonderful object, I've read some recent research on it that explains that we are looking at it from an angle which causes us to look straight into the cone of the nebula, sort of like looking down a pipe. If we were to look at it from the side we would see an elongated cloud......stroke of luck for us really 😀

[Epick Crom]

Hi Jiggy, my skies are fairly steady and regularly support higher magnifications. Yes we are really lucky with the orientation of M 57. It is such a wonderful sight! Clear skies to you

[cloudsweeper]

Great report Joe.  You've done really well to get such high magnifications!

I'm looking forward to the end of this cloudy run - esp. as it's now getting noticeably darker at a sensible time!

Doug.

[Epick Crom]

Thanks Doug. Good to hear your skies are getting darker, now those dreaded clouds need to clear ASAP! Wishing you clear skies