My first Messier

[davy999]

Well, second night with the scope and much more favourable results. The problems with alignment still there at first with the 6se but switched to 2 star align and did it first time. Tracking was quite good with only minor tweaks needed for quite long views of objects.

Did first viewing again of Altair, mainly because it is so bright and so easy to find. Spent quite some time slewing around the skies stopping a while wherever there were a group of stars that looked interesting. Swapped EP's like a man possessed just to try to start to learn what EP is suitable for particular objects.

After some time doing the above and generally being very impressed with the scope's capabilities I decided to go for it!

Off to the pc to see stellarium and see what objects are about in my skies, after a little looking around I chose the next target.

To be fair I wasn't expecting any amazing views as the 6SE isn't the most powerful scope from what i have read but it is a good starter scope.

Well, how wrong could I be! The scope slewed to the object and with the 20mm Plossi I could see this area of stars just off centre of the view, increased mag with 12mm and WOW! There were so many stars filling the EP, and the longer i looked the more I could see in this great mass.

So.. Now the moment you have all been waiting for, I.e. What the heck did I see?

M11. NGC6705. Also known as the Wild Duck Cluster.

I am sure most of you here have seen this several times but seeing something like this for the first time with my own eyes was great, and certainly worth waiting for the clouds to disappear since delivery of the scope on Monday.

I would have liked to have a look around for a few more objects but the light wispy cloud that had been around has begun to thicken somewhat and I decided to call it a night.

Perhaps it was better this way as I get to remember the first Messier object i saw, seeing and remembering just one for tonight rather than diluting the memories with a whole host of other objects, but next time I want 2

Well, there is my report, just having a coffee to warm me up before bed, I know.....caffeine at this time ain't good, but I am immune.

[Talitha]

Congratulations, well done! I hope you're clear again soon, there's lots of gems up there to be seen... now get some sleep, lol.