Binocular setup - viewing comets + lots of messier objects

[Mark at Beaufort]

After the France/Mexico football match I decided to have a quick look for the comet which ending in a 3 hour observing session with my 15x70 celestron binos.

The picture below shows the binos mounted. The main tripod is a Cullmann 4155 which together with the manfrotto grip gives a eyeline height of 2 metres. The grip is a Manfrotto 222 grip with built in spirit level and a cullmann quick release plate and a flash arm holding the William optics RDF.

As I said I started with the comet and after locating Capella it was fairly easy to find the comet. It looked like a globular but I could not detect a tail mainly because of the sky was still fairly light.

My observing session started with M27 followed by Stock 1, Cr 399 (brocchi's cluster) and M71.

Over to Ophiuchus and IC4665, Cr 350 and then the globulars M10, M12, M14, M107 (difficult), M9, M19 and M62. Over to Scorpio and M4. M6 came into view plus the three stars by its side - able to view star V905 at -33.30' Dec - it was clear!!! Had a go at M7 but just a bit too low.

Next was Sagittarius and M8, M20 and the lovely globular M22. I was feeling lucky and tried to view M69 and M70 (my only missing Messier Object) but I could not detect either in the binos.

Well that is 14 Messier objects with 15x70 binos - an enjoyable session.

Mark

[NaomiH]

Lucky you to get the comet! First clear night for weeks, we went out to a really dark hill top, about 2 am on 23.06, no problem finding Capella (what a beautiful star, isn't it), but with 10x70s no sign of McNaught, I guess it's just too far away for the smaller bins :-(. I did stop to look at M31 and M13, easy to find and a joy to look at, but the dog in the nearby farm kept barking and we thought the farmer might soon be out with his shotgun -- and it was unbelievably cold, worse than in March! Well, I guess we just have to wait for the next comet -- does anyone know what/where/when there's anything in the offing?

N