Tonight's Observing!

[Kain]

Hey guys..

Had a great evening tonight observing! Firstly I had a peed at the Moon..looking brilliant as always! then I turned my attention to Saturn! I have finally seen the cassini devision!! and what I thought was a couple of tiny moons!! Having though 'wow' at that, I turned my scope onto Jupiter...I was blown away!! I have finally seen that could bands!! they were faintish but I saw them for the first time!!

Now I thought lets try deep sky..I have never done that yet, so I didn't know what to see or how to find it. Using the Planisphere I found Vega/ Lyra..I found what I thought was the ring nebula!! It was like a fainting smudge that I couldn't focus on properly, it was between the bottom set of stars . . something like that there (the n is the nebula)

. n .

M13 was the next target! took me about half hour to figure where Hercules was, then another half hour to find the blasted thing..I did see it just about, but it was getting on to 23.20 then, and I'm currently suffering a bad cold so I gave up after faffing about trying to find it! Can it be seen as a 'star' with the naked eye?

Anyway I'm thrilled to bits seeing the Ring Nebula (M57??) I really can't wait now to get the 8" Dob!!

Brilliant stuff!

Kain

[Grant]

Nice report Kain, what dobsonian are you getting?

[anthony]

Hi Kain,

Nice to hear the successful evening. I was out hunting the same targets myself last night and remembered the first time I thought I found the ring nebulae - great feeling. Another one to aim for in that general area is M27, the dumbell nebula. It is quite big and bright for a deep sky object and a nice target.

Anthony

[Kain]

Thanks guys!

M27 hmm might have to look for that tonight!!

Kain

[geppetto]

Nice one Kain

Reading your report, it looks like your well and truly hooked on this hobby

[Kain]

Yup certainly hooked now!

As for which Dob, it's the 8" Revelation or something like that.

Kain

[MartinB]

:cheers: :cheers: :cheers: Nice report Kain. You had a very productive time especially since it was barely dark by the time you finished!! Your description fits for the ring so you are starting to find your way about pretty well. Hercules is quite faint but once you know how to locate the keystone between acturus and vega you will go straight to it every time. M13 my be visible with averted vision at a dark sky site but it is easily visible with binoculars provided LP is excessive. At lower powers it is just a faint round blur. With my 8" SCT it resolves into stars nicely with a 15mm EP so guess your dob will be similar.

Isn't it thrilling finally spot the famous fuzzies?

[Kain]

Yeah it was cool to see them. Slightly disappointed with the ring nebula if the truth is known, I was expecting to to see a ring rather than a fuzz, but it was no less magical seeing the fizz for the first time!!

Dumbell Nebula is in the sights for tonight!

Kain