What did you see tonight?

[scotty1]

Another good display this am , may of missed the brightest part as woke up at 3.30. 

[Mr Spock]

Great day for sunspots. Very sharp views at x200 with the 120mm. Granulation very easy to see.

[Littleguy80]

Lovely warm evening. I recently had a new 2” APM adapter for my Leica zoom delivered. It’s really improved the ergonomics of the zoom and it now easily reaches focus in my dob without having to remove the extension tube. I started out hunting for Comet 13P. Surprisingly bright despite the light sky. The SWAN band filter helped to improve contrast further and making the tail more obvious. My 32nd comet!! 
After this, I added the Baader VIP Barlow to the zoom for some further testing. M57 and the double double were a great warm up for M13. Zooming in on the great globular cluster was just fab. It really came to life as it grew to fill the FOV. M71 needed lower magnifications to be easily seen. I finished up with M27 and a UHC filter was just as impressive as M13. The Apple Core Nebulosity filling my view. Another lovely summer session. 

[lunator]

The Moon looked very impressive last night. The combination of the Moon illusion and the twin bands of clouds either side really made the Moon stand out. The low altitude also made it more comfortable to view as it had a warmer tint than usual thanks to some absorption. Despite the low altitude the seeing was actually quite good. 

I did have a quick sweep through Lyra & Cygnus but the cloud was building up so a caled it a night.

[Mr Spock]

Put the Tak out as there's some clear sky - a lot of high cloud too though.

Just had a first for me. Antares wasn't mushy like it usually is, and, at the side, a small pin prick of light in steady moments. Come in to check my chart as I haven't seen it before or knew where to look and yes, it's in the right place. That's a big win!

[Mr Spock]

Sadly, that was it. It has clouded over 

[peanutcol]

Well I was waiting for Saturn for the 1st time but cloud came in just before it was to come into view so changed tactics and found NGC 7000 the American nebula. Found using stellarrium. Looked like a star but was giving off an orangey glow. Then cloud spoiled my view. Nice to see something new.

[Stu]

3 hours ago, peanutcol said:

Well I was waiting for Saturn for the 1st time but cloud came in just before it was to come into view so changed tactics and found NGC 7000 the American nebula. Found using stellarrium. Looked like a star but was giving off an orangey glow. Then cloud spoiled my view. Nice to see something new.

Shame about the cloud! NGC7000 is huge, so doesn’t look stellar at all I’m afraid. You tend to need very dark skies, and a wide field of view (3 degrees or so) to see it properly. An OIII filter really helps too. What scope/eyepiece were you using? It’s well worth tracking these lively objects down and seeing them properly, the North America Nebula and the Veil are two of my all time favourites.

[John]

NGC 7000 is a very large object - big binoculars under a dark sky probably give the best views of it. With most scopes you just see portions of it - the "gulf of mexico" part is probably the easiest to pick out.

Edited Wednesday at 15:18 by John

[peanutcol]

I was using my skywatcher heritage 130p and at first my 32mm to find it then swapped to 10mm. I didn't see anything like that it was just like an orange star. Tiny. I might have been wrong then.

[Jim L]

I had my AT72EDII out last night to try out my new SkyRover 24mm UFF on the open clusters Ed Astro sketched beautifully in his post here:

Ed’s sketches had me super excited to see his clusters. Super Excited! High clouds prevented me from viewing the clusters, but my wife and I caught glimpses of Albiero and M39 through holes and so we spent an enjoyable hour waiting and looking, and waiting some more and looking some more. It was a pleasant evening with comfortable temperatures so we spending a very relaxing time chatting between viewing opportunities.

Albiero is always a pleasure to see when conditions are good and the air was nice and steady last night. M39 was also pretty but the view of it suffered more from the abundant moisture and through the thin clouds when viewing through them was even possible. Thicker clouds obliterated the view of M39, but Albiero could sometimes still punch through.

The 24mm UFF was a huge success and especially so because my wife loved it, which opens the door to purchasing more of the excellent KUO made eyepieces. The views through the eyepiece were sharp and bright, the field of view was more than adequately large, and eye placement and eye relief were completely free of any annoying issues. It’s a great eyepiece for wide field observing.

I’ll revisit Ed’s clusters at the first opportunity, and hopefully tonight.

[Stu]

18 hours ago, peanutcol said:

I was using my skywatcher heritage 130p and at first my 32mm to find it then swapped to 10mm. I didn't see anything like that it was just like an orange star. Tiny. I might have been wrong then.

Yes, I think you were looking at something else.

This shows the field of view with the 32mm Plossl, NGC7000 fills the fov so you would have to position it to see the contrast change around the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ section.

It is a faint object so you need dark skies, good transparency and well adapted eyes to see it. Well worth it though.

[John]

NGC 7000 is one of those extended objects where the stated magnitude of the object (magnitude 4 in this case) is highly misleading when trying to ascertain it's likely visibility in a given instrument. 

Magnitude 4 is an integrated brightness figure for NGC 7000 as a whole but the actual surface brightness of the object is much fainter than this - probably around magnitude 12 in the brighter parts ?

The larger face on galaxies such as Messier 101, Messier 33 etc can also be misleading in this way if only the integrated brightness figure is taken into account. 

Edited Thursday at 17:04 by John

[Jim L]

I bagged Ed’s three “some summertime clusters” last night between sunset and moonrise. Seeing and transparency were average and the scope and eyepieces were an Orion ST80 80mm f/5 refractor, a 32mm Plössl for star hopping, and a 15mm Celestron spotting scope eyepiece to bring in more detail and to darken the background sky. The spotting scope eyepiece is interesting because while it originally retailed for $119, they could for a time, though no longer, be purchased for just over $7. One well known and justifiably respected eyepiece aficionado declared it similar to other eyepieces in it’s price range; the price range he was referring to was $119. A good eyepiece and I picked up a pair for under $15.

First up were NGC 6633 and IC 4766. They are close by each other and within a relatively sparse naked eye star area of my light polluted sky. Using Cebalrai in Ophiuchus as an anchor, and the 32mm Plössl to give me a roughly 4° field of view, I located NGC 6633 in four easy hops, but not before checking out IC 4665 which was in the field with Cebalrai.

I did all of the hopping with the Plössl and most of the observing with the 15mm eyepiece, which in the 400mm length scope gave me a roughly 27x magnification within a 65° field. IC 4665 occupied about a quarter the field and was dominated by a small number of bright stars. Pretty, as are most all open clusters, but not unusual or dense enough to hold my interest for long.

Next up was NGC 6633, which appeared nestled within a much richer star field generally than IC 4665, and which appeared to be comprised of many more stars though they were of a lesser magnitude. Very pretty and very interesting.

One hop to the lower left and IC 4766 appeared as a smaller but still populous cluster, again framed within a rich star field. Pretty and interesting, but not as much so as NGC 6633 through the gear I was using. A larger aperture and higher magnification might have been helpful here.

M29 in Cygnus was the third of Ed’s summer clusters, and as it was within the field with Sadr it was effortless to locate. Like IC 4665 it was dominated by a relatively small number of bright stars but arrayed in a more interesting and less random pattern.

As the sky was brightening from the rising moon I observed M71, which I could only see using averted vision, the Coathanger, and the Wild Duck Cluster. All beautiful and all interesting in their own ways.

 

 

[Mr Spock]

Put the scope. Grabbed just a few second of ε Lyr at x148 before cloud came over...

One good thing about the Tak is it's ready to go as soon as it's out. No cooling required and perfect airy discs.

[Mr Spock]

Grabbed a few more doubles in between clouds. Another bank has just come over and this one looks extensive.

[Nik271]

Managed to see 13P/Olbers at 11pm last night with my 102mm refractor. It is reasonably bright right now, looks like a 7-th magnitude globular cluster at x40 and it is well positioned at 20 degrees up in the Northwest at the begining of nautical darkness. I saw no tail. Thanks to @michael.h.f.wilkinson for his post in the comet section alerting me to this comet! 

Edited yesterday at 07:42 by Nik271
typo

[John]

Dodging clouds here with a 10 inch dob. Mostly it's about checking via double stars that I can still collimate an F/4.7 newt but a few showpiece DSO's have crept into the session. 

The Ring and Dumbell planetary nebulae always look great with decent aperture.

Got some reasonable star resolution in the sometimes overlooked globular cluster Messier 71 in Sagitta.

So many cloudy nights lately it's almost like learning to use a scope again when I do get out !

 

Edited 13 hours ago by John

[Gonariu]

Last night, after spending a bit too much time on the computer, I went to bed at two in the morning, I went to close the terrace door and I saw the moon already at a certain height in the sky. I immediately gave in to the temptation to look at it quickly with the Polaris 90L that I recently purchased and quickly put everything outside. I tried the following magnifications:
X59 (eyepiece K22) for an overall view, the moon barely fits in the field of view;
X104 (eyepiece OR 12.5): image too bright, I don't like it very much;
X186 (eyepiece OR 7) and X217 (eyepiece OR 6): these are the best magnifications, you can see a series of small craters in the southern internal part of Clavius, inside Alphonsus you can see the microcraters GA and GB and Alphonsus A, I was surprised how evident the Rima Hyginus is;
X325 (OR 4 and SR 4 eyepieces): the magnification is a bit too strong, the image begins to lose definition and contrast. I go to bed at 4, this morning I feel the consequences of having slept little last night, I'm about to go to the bar to get a good coffee!
Observation on seeing: after a very long time we finally have a decent but not perfect seeing with almost calm images; when it is like this it is truly pleasant to contemplate our satellite at the telescope eyepiece for the pure pleasure of doing it, the last few times with a poor seeing with which the lunar surface seemed almost a "flying carpet", it didn't take me long to put everything back inside and go to bed.

P.S.: a Vixen even if it is vintage is always a Vixen!!!

Edited 3 hours ago by Gonariu

[Paz]

I was out last night again with the 127mm maksutov, this time just with a 32mm plossl  so nice and easy to find things and track them, and a good exit pupil for DSOs.

The darkness is already coming back but I was accompanied by my neighbours landscape night lighting and my other neighbours blazing landing light that never goes out. It occurred to me I have not used a red light or torch when observing from home for years. Even after the street lights go out there is still plenty of light to go by. Anyway the lightning does have some use, helping me to avoid squashing the frogs/toads that seem to be roaming around my garden at the moment.

M13 was nice and high, and looked great to me as in the last month or two I've been accustomed to observing it in more twilight and with less aperture than this.

M57 was also great, I could see the ring as opposed to just a faint fuzzy.

I checked out Cygnus X1 which I do from time to time, it's a non descript star (V1357 Cygni) but is I understand  the location of the first black hole to be discovered by x ray emissions so is a wonder to look at.

I scouted out the location of BL Lac, a Blazar in lacerta but its too faint for this scope , but this will be on with a bigger scope maybe in September/October when it is high at a sensible time and it's dark enough (and if I am disciplined enough to get dark adapted). My magnitude limit last night was around 11.5, BL Lac is 14.5 or so, and Lacerta is a little off the beaten track for me so keeping familiar with it will be handy.