Hand-held and summer North observations

[SwiMatt]

Hey all, I live at lat 58°N, which means that until August we won't have any actual nights as we will almost never be past nautical twilight. For the rest of the month I have the "chance" of observing with hand-held 10x50 from a Bortle 4/5 site (I will only have Bortle 7 after June), so I wonder: are there any interesting objects that I could focus on with these conditions?

Last week I spent my time familiarizing with spring constellations and planets' position in the sky, and M44 has of course been a beautiful target. But of all the other objects I thought I could at least spot, I could see none (e.g. M3, M13, M39, IC 4665). These objects were suggested by the monthly map on SkyMaps. This week I observed the moon at twilight but I want to get out again under darker nights!

I've had success with double stars, but I had only limited input on that front: Mizar and Alcor were indeed so easy, but I absolutely loved Nu Draconis, and it got me excited about double stars. So I downloaded the list of the Astronomical League Binocular Double Star Program, and will start with this, but I was hoping to find other types of objects to complement double stars. Any suggestions for a noob?

Thank you all in advance!

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by SwiMatt

[westmarch]

I have always found Steve Tonkin’s Binocular Sky Newsletter useful.

https://binocularsky.com/newsletter/BinoSkyNL.pdf

John

[Nik271]

You can see the phase of Venus with binoculars all of June, that's always fun, but of course you don't need dark sky for that.

Some asterisms should be visible with binoculars even in astronomical twilight. One of my favourites is the Coathanger, roughtly 1/3 of the way between Albireo (a great double star!) and Altair.

[SwiMatt]

On 28/05/2023 at 14:19, westmarch said:

I have always found Steve Tonkin’s Binocular Sky Newsletter useful.

https://binocularsky.com/newsletter/BinoSkyNL.pdf

John

Cool resource, thanks! I also use the monthly map of skymaps.com that comes with a list of binoculars objects, I hoped to find some longer lists!

4 hours ago, Nik271 said:

You can see the phase of Venus with binoculars all of June, that's always fun, but of course you don't need dark sky for that.

Some asterisms should be visible with binoculars even in astronomical twilight. One of my favourites is the Coathanger, roughtly 1/3 of the way between Albireo (a great double star!) and Altair.

I never could make out the phases of Venus! It always only looked like a star to me. Any suggestions there?

I saw the Coathanger yesterday night, truly a beautiful asterism. Now that Beehive is gone, I found another equally beautiful object to turn to when I can't find anything! 🤩

[Nik271]

2 hours ago, SwiMatt said:

 

I never could make out the phases of Venus! It always only looked like a star to me. Any suggestions there?

Try to look at it in daylight, or just at sunset when the sky is still light. This way the glare of Venus is dimiished. In 2 weeks Venus will be almost 30 arcseconds in diameter. with 10x magnification it may be a bit difficult, but it should be possible to spot the crescent shape. 10x will make 30 arcseconds appear like 5 arcminutes, which is the size a lentil at arms length, small but resolvable.

[SwiMatt]

5 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Try to look at it in daylight, or just at sunset when the sky is still light. This way the glare of Venus is dimiished. In 2 weeks Venus will be almost 30 arcseconds in diameter. with 10x magnification it may be a bit difficult, but it should be possible to spot the crescent shape. 10x will make 30 arcseconds appear like 5 arcminutes, which is the size a lentil at arms length, small but resolvable.

Thanks! I will keep looking at it with more attention now that I know. It might also just be that my binoculars are not good enough quality...

[SwiMatt]

On 30/05/2023 at 00:44, Nik271 said:

Try to look at it in daylight, or just at sunset when the sky is still light. This way the glare of Venus is dimiished. In 2 weeks Venus will be almost 30 arcseconds in diameter. with 10x magnification it may be a bit difficult, but it should be possible to spot the crescent shape. 10x will make 30 arcseconds appear like 5 arcminutes, which is the size a lentil at arms length, small but resolvable.

Holy moly, you were right! Thanks for the tip! Even now I was able to see that Venus isn't a round dot, and I could note which side was lit. In 10x50! Seems like magic...

Thanks for giving me another beautiful object to observe! 

[Nik271]

Well done, glad to help! I enjoy binoculars, nothing beats them for portability when I need to observe away from home.

 

The shape of the planet should get even more prominent, thinner and larger in the next month, after that Venus may be too close to the sun for safe observation.

[SwiMatt]

10 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Well done, glad to help! I enjoy binoculars, nothing beats them for portability when I need to observe away from home.

 

The shape of the planet should get even more prominent, thinner and larger in the next month, after that Venus may be too close to the sun for safe observation.

At my latitudes, Venus is currently the only feature in the evening sky, so I might as well spend all my observing minutes on it. 

I have to admit that, while I can't wait to get myself a telescope, the idea of getting myself a larger pair of binoculars to use with a tripod mount has crossed my mind. You know, while I wait before triggering a bigger buy 🤣

[The60mmKid]

I found the Astronomical League's Deep Sky Binocular Observing Program an absolute pleasure. It's mainly open clusters... really beautiful ones. I used 42mm and 70mm binoculars to observe them. Switching between those was a joy since each object looks so different through smaller binoculars, which offer breadth, and larger binoculars, which offer depth. If I could travel to dark skies with only a pair of binoculars, I'd take along Pocket Sky Atlas and a copy of that observing list 😊