First Session of the New Season

[Jiggy 67]

Tuesday 7th September with a New moon and a very warm and clear evening was setup beautifully to be my first proper session of the new season so I set the EQ6-R-Pro up after it was put away for most of the summer (this nightmare reminded me of why I leave this setup outside throughout the winter!!) and mounted the 8inch reflector.

It was a lovely evening but I have a wooded area directly to the West with high trees, still in full leaf which restricts my view and a rose bush over an archway into the garden which really got me down because Saturn and jupiter pass through it........I might just have to do something about that! 🪓

So I started with some easy objects, just to get my eye in again after the break.

NGC6885 and 6882. Two lovely and large open clusters almost merging into one. NGC6885 centred around a bright star, 20 Vul, and containing approx 30+ stars, although there are clearly more part of this cluster. NGC6882 is below and to the left of 6885 (inverted view) with slightly fewer stars but three very bright ones including 19 Vul. Very nice pair of clusters through the TV Panoptic 24mm (x41 mag)

NGC7243 is a large open cluster in a rich star field containing 50+ stars. Started on this one with the TV 24mm (x41 mag) but it was also very nice with a bit of magnification, the 9mm Morpheus gave me x111 mag. There is a nice double star in this cluster, Struve 2890, which is easily split as two evenly matched white stars. The Morpheus 6.5mm gave me x153 mag and a nice split of the double with one star at 1 o'clock to the other.

I kept trying for Jupiter and Saturn which should have been nicely viewable by now........Damn that archway!!!

Next was globular cluster, M72. I have to say I'm not sure I got this. I think I found it with the Morpheus 17.5mm (x57 mag) but it was very faint and small, almost stellar in appearance but something made me think it wasn't a star. I tried the 12.5mm (x80 mag) and the 6.5mm Morpheus (x153 mag) but it remained very small and faint. There was an appearance of nebulosity around it, possibly the crowd of stars around the core but if it was the glob, I could only see the core.

Finally....Saturn appeared from behind the bush and it was worth the wait!!......stunning as always. With the 9mm Morpheus (x111 mag) it appeared nice and bright with the rings at quite a shallow angle, maybe the reason I couldn't make out the Cassini Division. The seeing wasn't really allowing me to see much banding on the planet either but what I did enjoy viewing was a clear dark gap in the rings in the bottom right hand corner of the planet as the planet itself cast a shadow on the rings. Phoebe (i think) was also clearly visible.

Jupiter was toying with me, I could see it through the bush but the view was awful......I would have to stay up a lot later for it to clear the bush...not really do-able on a school night....I'll catch it another time.

I ended the night with globular cluster NGC6934. Easily found with the 17.5mm (x57 mag). It was quite faint but, also, quite large appearing as a cloud of non-resolvable stars. I tried a number of focal lengths down to the Morpheus 4.5mm (x222 mag) where I began to see the hint of stars resolving, mainly with averted vision but they were definitely separating into individual stars at the edges. A nice, large and reasonably bright cluster which would benefit from eyepieces with good contrast.

Overall a very good start to the season

 

 

[Luke]

Great report!

The 7th was very kind to me. Lovely views of the sun in white light and h-alpha, with really interesting sun spots and a whopper prom. Then I loved a gentle evening - a start to the new season here as well - with my wife and son, taking in Saturn, Jupiter, M13, the Ring Nebula, the Owl Cluster and Alberio. The tilt of the rings on Saturn is lovely!

We were doing a mini shootout between an 8 inch Edge SCT and a 120mm Skywatcher Equinox refractor on the planets. On the night they seemed pretty close, and we'd like to compare them on a few more nights to see how it pans out. I did think the Edge would have the edge, but the 120mm frac was coming out close to even for us from a casual session. Both scopes are lovely and keepers with different strengths, it's just a bit of fun for us to compare them.

PS I'm glad we kept our 120mm frac. I was up for selling it at one point (after giving up solar imaging due to poor solar h-a filter replacement) but I think it will be the biggest frac I stay with, as tempting as a 150 is!

Edited September 10, 2021 by Luke

[domstar]

Great report. It's been so clear here that I've been out 4 times since Sunday after a break. It's good to read about what you were looking at. I had a late Autumn of M72, M73 and the Saturn Nebula a couple of years ago. Very enjoyable but I haven't been back since. It could be time for another look soon.

[Epick Crom]

Nice report Jiggy, a great start to your new season!