The best of broken sky !

[cotterless45]

Clear skies ! Gripped , sorted and set up   .Lets astronomise !
After two hours I managed to count 48 stars by eye , in the whole sky . The dew became horrendous, everything dripping and steaming up , apart from the 6" optics , dew heated .

 

At 6pm , Jupiter and Venus were bright in the west . The sky views at 9pm were : 

South : Orion with Sirius and Monoceros to the east .

Zenith : Capella , below to the south , Mars over Adebaran with the Pleiades to the west .

West : Cassiopeia. Still not too late to catch these summer clusters !

North : Polaris and UMinor   ,Kochab  at 4 o'clock Polaris time in its anti-clockwise dance around Polaris. UMa was upright on it's tail with just a glimpse of Chara ( Canes Venatici) .

East : Leo risen with Gemini high above .

A great sky for beginners to find our late winter gems .

I kicked off with the comet C/2022 E3. (ZTF) in Taurus , up by Aldebaran. It was both dimmer and smaller than previous views. Still exciting to spot this rare visitor.

I gave some multiples and binaries a shot , just to test out seeing . 

Σ1831 in UMa is a gem . The tiny triple element is a tiny smokeball  picked up at x216.

The triple Tegmine ( Zeta Cancri) fell wide open with a 1.1" split . As did ΟΣ215 in Leo. 54 Leonis gave a lovely sapphire blue companion , best seen with a bit of aperture closed off . 

Then sat back and looked at the sky .

Just for fun decided to sketch a few Messier's and favourites,to see what anyone could see from the edge of town . Transparency must have been good .

Bode's gave a superb view . As did the "Eskimo nebula ", NGC 2392 in Gemini . Here a big of magnification gave the central hot white dwarf causing the halo .

M35 gave a dazzling fov again in Gemini. 

Then M67 in Cancer . Not much to look at under town skies . But , a little digging shows this to be one of the oldest M clusters at 4 billion years . It's so old that it's 1500 light years off the plane of the Milky Way   .Most open clusters sitting with the spiral arms. 12 light years across and 2,600 light years away . Sometimes , just looking isn't enough ! 

I include some simple sketches of what is possible from the edge of the urban jungle ,

Get out there ! Under 

Clear skies ! Nick,

[josefk]

Very nice! enjoyed that just now.

[wookie1965]

Brilliant Nick I could not split Tegmine higher mag and the view was soft not sharp, I must start sketching again really enjoy sitting there quietly drawing.

[Kon]

Excellent report and the sketches brought your description to life. It's like looking down at the eyepiece.

[SuburbanMak]

Great report and sketches! 

[Paz]

Great report, updates like these make want to get out there and do more observing.