Two Saturns !

[cotterless45]

Two Saturns ! Put the C6r through its paces . Certainly appreciated the new Baader Steeltrack focuser . At least you don’t miss the target when rotating it ( previous was the swinging SW Crayford )

A balmy 13 degrees out there with a light sky . Some great clusters in Cassiopeia, got the binaries of iota ( triple) eta and sigma. 

Saturn just coming over the roof tops and a narrow ring with a difficult Cassini as it was bouncing with thermals over the town. After midnight the seeing settled to give a1.1” split to 36 Andromedae. Had a look around at what was up. 

Andromeda gave a high mag view of the blue snowball (NGC7662) . M15 off Enif looked great . Don’t forget NGC 752 another of Caroline’s finds.

Caught M11 ( flying ducks) in Scutum, not much definition as being in the bright south . 

Saw that Aquarius was up which gave M22. Then turned to NGC 7009, the “Saturn nebula”. Quite as shock , very bright at +8 and I could see the spheroid shape . 

I had caught M17 earlier , just a glimpse of the Swan. Decent from the edge of town.

Quite a few targets , lovely to get M13 and M92 when the Summer Triangle is next door !

After battling the security lights from the house up the way , repeatedly coming in on a bizarre cycle , returned to Saturn and Jupiter . Luckily he wasn’t out with his nightly bonfire , perhaps the lights hypnotised the beggar.

Nice early kick off and winter is coming , under clear skies .

Nick. 

Edited August 21, 2023 by cotterless45