Sagittarius Between the Clouds

[MercianDabbler]

Had a spell outside with the FL102 last night. The new wing nuts on the SP tripod were certainly a boon with setup time. Cloud cover was looking like it could go either way though so I got myself ready to start looking by around 10PM.

I was hoping for a tour around the Sagittarius area and set up at the bottom of the garden where I have a view to the south. There was still some cloud hanging around in that direction. I managed to spot a star though and lined up on that using the Rigel finder. Closer inspection proved it to be Nunki. I could see another star (Mu perhaps) and tried to do the same with that but at this point the clouds got worse and after a few minutes a big blanket of cloud rolled in so I decided to head indoors for 20 minutes and then see how things looked.

Out again around 10:50 PM things were looking better cloud-wise but not entirely clear to the south. I found a star again and once again it turned out to be Nunki - slightly higher and a good deal further to the right than before but my now a neighbour's tree was blocking some options.

The session turned out to be a revisiting of some targets from July last year. A short and not too difficult star hop with the 32mm Plossl brought me to M22 which was an easy one to spot and I was quite glad just to have seen anything after so much cloud dodging. From there it was over to Mu and up to the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud (M24), again easy. Panning up from there an open cluster popped into view - I'd found M18 without really trying and from there up to the Swan Nebula which showed immediately as a slash of fuzziness. I could pick up varying amounts of fuzziness and shape through different eyepieces but it seemed to come and go. The obvious next step was the Eagle Nebula. No trouble finding the cluster stars but I can't honestly say that I saw any nebulosity. For the most part I found that the 15mm SLV was about as far as I wanted to push the magnification tonight. The 9mm DeLite was not terrible but didn't really seem to be improving the view.

I rounded off the evening by going back the way I'd come to M24 and then Mu and then panning in RA to the clear group of four stars nearby. From there it was downwards by guesstimation to the Lagoon Nebula. With a bit of random panning I managed to bring the Lagoon Nebula stars into view and with the 15mm SLV installed I could suspect some nebulosity. By now I'd pretty much arrived at the nearby rooftops so I decided to pack up. With the naked eye I could see nothing at all in that direction, not even Nunki by now.

All in all a pretty cloud limited session just grabbing what targets I could, not helped by being a month later than my efforts in the same area last year and no chance at all to attempt anything new but my streamlining of the setup has definitely worked - I don't think I would have considered going out with the SP and (achro) 102mm scope last year with such unpromising cloud cover. Transparency was looking pretty good overhead by the time I headed indoors but definitely a lot less good lower down.

[Epick Crom]

Good job taking advantage of gaps in the clouds! The Sagittarius region is one of my favourites. Glad you got to see some of its highlights 👍

[josefk]

Nice one. The Eagle Nebula was on my "missed list" a couple of weekends ago @MercianDabbler. I could see the star field and the star field there is quite pretty in itself i thought but i couldn't "will" any of the nebular into vision i'm afraid.

[JeremyS]

Super report 👍🏻

[MercianDabbler]

I'd more or less given up hope of getting another look at this area before it became inaccessible to me. Last night I was quite busy but finishing my final visit I noticed that the sky was still clear and no trace of those floaty clouds (or worse) that seemed to be a feature of almost every evening for the past couple of weeks. Having arrived home and done the final chore (putting the bins out) I set up the FL102 at the bottom of the garden again and had an eyepiece in place by 10PM. On this occasion I could see more than one star of the 'teapot' by naked eye but they were by now well to the right of my ideal spot and pretty close to some trees.

Once again I lined up on Nunki using the Rigel. I'd intended to skip revisiting M22 but the low altitude meant that my star hopping options were pretty limited so M22 it was. Having found it I felt it would be rude not to have a good look through several EPs up to the 9mm DeLite. The view was nice but of course this burned up some time. Last time I had not attempted M28 so I decided to give that a try. A straightforward star hop with Kaus Borealis and 70 setting the limits to my search area. It was a tough one to spot but after a few attempts I managed to pick it up and again tried a few EPs on it.  I then tried a pan in RA to see if I could pick up the Lagoon but it was too late so I think that will be the end of Sagittarius for me this year.

The sky was still looking good so I decided to move myself to the other side of the mount and try for M81 and M82. These are never good from my house because the city centre is to the north. I don't think I've ever picked up M82 at home.  I lined up on Dubhe using the Rigel finder. From there it was a none too easy star hop in the FL102 with a 32mm Plossl - the gaps between the waymark stars often being a good deal more than the field of view but I managed to get to the three stars around 'EN' without losing my place too much and then across to the region of M81. The galaxy popped into view fairly quickly. Upping the magnification seemed to make things a lot worse but looking up from the scope I saw that those annoying floaty clouds had put in an appearance, this time blowing the opposite way to normal and moving very quickly. It didn't take long to move away so that I could try some more EPs but M81 was not a great view through any EP. I wasn't too hopeful of M82 but gave it a try anyway. If anything I fould it slightly more easily than M81, being a distinct 'slash' in the sky its shape made it a bit more obvious as I panned across it... a first from my garden I think. I then repeated my visit to the M51 area but again without success.

By now it was getting past 11PM and with work the next day it was time to think about packing up. Saturn seemed to be presenting itself in a convenient spot to the south so who was I to argue? I had some lovely bright and quite steady views of Saturn and Titan through a succession of EPs and even managed to deploy the 5mm Starguider with some success. I could pick up a band on the planet's disk but that was about as far as it went in terms of detail. After lingering on Saturn for probably too long it was finally time to pack up around 11:30.