Monday night - a bit of everything!

[Davesellars]

Another nice clear night...  I hadn't even bothered to take the dob in from the previous night's marathon session expecting at least to be able to get some DSO observations in.  I even made an observation list in SkySafari made up of quite a few from the excellent Caldwell list scattered with a few other objects.

Stepping out at midnight though, initially the sky was quite disappointing. After the pristine sky earlier I'd expected much better but it seemed perhaps pollutants or very high haze / whatever had spoiled the sky somewhat and I could barely see the Milky Way which wasn't a good sign...  The neighbours' lights were still on as well not helping the situation!

Undeterred, I started with something bright and not so affected by lighter sky - M13.  The glob of course is spectacular in the 12" resolving right down to the core using the 7mm Pentax.  Its "companion" galaxy was also visible, this was at least an indication that transparency was sufficient to continue for some fainter stuff a bit later.

First though, while I waited for the neighbours to switch off their lights and hopefully get a bit more darkness I went on to M57..  Again, using the 7mm Pentax for 214x was a nice power which showed the bright oval "doughnut" of the nebula well.

On to M27.. Which I'd realised I hadn't oberved for at least 4 years! Not sure how I'd not come back to this one seen as it's really a fantastic example and just how much an OIII filter improves the view.  Without a filter, the nebula is large and very obvious but the shape is quite indistinct, although the brighter central region is still obvious as well as the extension.  With an OIII filter, the nebula becomes a completely different beast, the central "hour-glass" form stunningly prominent with the two lobes also shown extensively.  The Baader 10nm filter with the further restricted bandwidth actually gave a significant boost in contrast for these lobes over the Astronomik filter.  I tried the UHC filter which gave a "boosted" version of what could be seen without a filter but was far from the view with the OIII.  A Hbeta filter showed only the central hour-glass with perhaps slightly more brightness added to the top and bottom of this shape.

OK, so after spending a reasonable amount of time with M27, finally I'd got a bit more darkness back - The Milky Way was visible but without any structure.  On my list was the NGC 6888 - The Crescent Nebula, which is a new observation.  Initially a little difficult to find among the rich starfield, I managed to determine its position and fortunately could just about make out a slight arcing nebulosity without any filter.  I selected the Baader OIII together with a 32mm Plossl for maximum exit pupil to increast the contrast for the filter and this seemed to give a good result.  The nebulosity was very obvious arcing around denser region of stars in the Milky Way.  It reminded me a little of a smaller / much less brighter version of the Veil.  I think this will show quite a bit better on a night of excellent transparency though.

With the OIII / 32mm Plossl still in place, I headed to the North American Nebula, NGC 7000.  Obviously the nebula is much more massive that the field of view so I tried to concentrate on certain regions around edges of the nebulosity and could certainly see distinct brightning of the background to then sudden darkess in areas.  I think next time, I may try this again with the 120ST which is capable of getting in the entire nebula.

A switch now from nebulae to galaxies...  NGC 7331 in Pegasus with the 10mm Delos was quite a view - it seemed to have real depth at the core with extensive dust surrounding it.  Its companion galaxy, NGC7335 was also quite obvious although very small.

A short hop from NGC 7331 is Stephan's Qunitet - I applied more power using the 7mm pentax for 214x after I could just about discern a very faint small field of smudges.  The extra power did not really help much though and I think this may be to do with the transparency.

Moving on to M33, the key factor of transparency was very much more apparent to what I'd encountered the previous night.  the same eyepiece used: The 28mm Maxvision, but tonight the galaxy was ghost-like, barely on the edge of visibility.

Further up to M31 it was a little better, M110 showing again very well with M31's dust lanes quite extensive.  I tried for the bright nebula, NGC 206 in M31 but I could not make this out from the dust of the galaxy.  Perhaps, I should have used the OIII or UHC filter in order to attempt top bring this out...  I shall attempt this again anothe night.  G1, the little glob I tried to find, but I failed to discern its whereabouts, with the lack of really good indicative stars to help.

I was just about able to get to Saturn, however the seeing was not great. Nice image though, although with the 102ED it was far better the previous night!

Jupiter - Quite a surprise as I pointed the scope to this to see 2 shadow transits from Io and Ganymede.  Some nice detail of whorls within the belts very occasionally with the 7mm Pentax at 214x although the seeing was seriously variable.   I stayed observing Jupiter for quite a while with the transits until Io actually was inside Jupiter's disc along with the GRS...  Io was actually sitting right on top of it.  Although the GRS itself was exceptionally difficult to make out properly at this point (it does seem the colour is not as intense as the 4 or 5 years ago?)

I finished up with Mars but the seeing was nowhere near good enough.  I could just about make out an indistinct dark region.

Finishing up close to 4am, it had been a nice productive night despite not ideal conditions...  I still have 18 items on my list I didn't get to...  Perhaps tonight....

Edited August 9, 2022 by Davesellars

[GordonD]

That's a great report. I enjoyed reading it - thanks for posting.

[Kon]

Great report and it sounds like a night of delights.

[wookie1965]

Cracking report some really great objects there a couple of my favourites. M13 and M57.