Back at the eyepiece

[Kon]

In recent weeks I have been consumed with planetary photography with my Dob and I have not looked down the eyepiece properly for long time and it has also been a while . The planets looked awful last night for imaging as they were 'simmering' but the Milky Way was visible so I decided to have a nice relaxing session in the Cygnus area. Istarted with the planets anyways but both Jupiter and Saturn were just a mess even with the 8.8mm EP; with the 14 I could pick up some banding on Jupiter. I then put my 24mm as I was planning to view nebulas. Saturn looked pretty in the star field;  my wife calls it unreal. Jupiter visible with its 4 moons as well. I then moved to M27. A nice ring with some of its mag13 stars visible with averted vision. Going up with the magnification made it look worse with loss of details. I could see a nice outer bright ring and a fuzzier inside. With the 24 I could pick some greenish colours as others indicated on their reports (in the higher mag it was greyish). I know the area quite well so I was panning around and I found the Coathanger looking....well like a coathanger 🤣. Then down the M71 which appeared as a fuzzy little patch. Higher magnification did not resolve individual stars. I then moved to M27. The seeing must have been really good at this point towards zenith  as I could see it in my finder scope as a smudge of light. With the 24 the shape was apparent as an hour glass. Unfortunately, I was too preoccupied to go to Veil that I did not put the OIII filter for comparison. 

Next was the Veil. I could see it without any filter with averted vision but with the OIII it really popped nicely. Nice filaments on both Eastern and Western Veil with a lot of structure. Pickerings Triangle nicely defined with lighter and darker filaments. That really made my night and I am really looking forward to more observing as nights are longer now. I finally moved to the NAN that was easily distinguishable from the darker background. The Gulf of Mexico was showing some nice structure at the edges. Overall an excellent few hours of observing. Unfortunately, my S horizon was cloudy as I was after the usual late summer delights. This weekend is looking promising.

[Stu]

Welcome back to the bright side @Kon 😀👍. Great report of an enjoyable session. Still waiting to get amongst those Southern treasures myself this year, hopefully soon.

[Kon]

47 minutes ago, Stu said:

Welcome back to the bright side @Kon 😀👍. Great report of an enjoyable session. Still waiting to get amongst those Southern treasures myself this year, hopefully soon.

Thanks. I never left it, I only neglected it 🤣. I did miss the calmness and tranquility of observing.