Group observing session 19/6/10

[wulfrunian]

I've posted this in the local observing group thread, but it was such a good night last night at our dark sky site that I thought I'd share it here too

Me, haitch and orions-knight took a leap of faith in the Met Office forecast, and despite a mostly cloudy sky in the West Midlands, drove over to the farm in hope that it was going to clear. Arriving at around 10.30 we were rewarded with a mostly clear sky, just starting to darken.

In the semi-darkness we took in Venus, Saturn and the Moon. Venus was very low and looked like little more than a very bright shimmering star with no real phase showing; the seeing wasn't great, confirmed by the views of the Moon and Saturn, though they were nice to gaze at, three Saturn moons visible.

Had a brief glimpse of the Ring, before the clouds rolled in, and it looked as if it might be a short night. However by midnight it had cleared again, and turned into a superb dark sky especially for the time of year. Can't remember what order we did things in, but here's what we then took in:

Great views of the Ring. Used magnifications of x200 on my 10" and just over that in haitch's 14" beast, and it was brighter than I can ever remember seeing it. I tried some nebular filters, but they just seemed to make it disappear. Best views were without, in a field sprinkled with stars.

M13 at high power - wow! Almost looked like an open cluster! - seemed to be resolved right into the centre. Never seen it like that. While I was first looking at M13, the other two were apparently wasting time scouring the brightest part of the sky in search of Comet McNaught - except they weren't actually wasting time, as they successfully found it first in binoculars, then in the scopes. "Not a show-stopper" according to Astronomy Now, but we thought it was fantastic! We all thought we saw a short fan-shaped tail, too, at x40.

We went for M81 and M82, which I was having trouble finding until orions-knight managed to locate them for me - I was using the guide stars of the Plough, just heading in the wrong direction nice views in the same field using his Nagler and my Pentax. Through the 14" we could clearly see a dust lane in M82, another first for me!

Other sundries... Albireo is always a great sight, and it shone in a lovely field of stars out there. In fact looking more closely around the Cygunus region, we realised we could see the Milky Way, which was a very unexpected bonus! A few meteors, none of which I spotted but never mind! Lots of satellites. And plenty of time just gazing at the sky without binos or scopes, just taking in the view.

Packed up around 1.30am. Thanks to the other two for a brill night's viewing, looking forward to the next one