New forest forray

[adam88]

Since discovering it i am finding that the 7timer clear sky clock is pretty reliable for predicting clear skies. Even though we were having a thunder storm at 5 it predicted clear skies from 21.00 and sure enough it was right!

As i wasn't working i decided i pop down the new forest (stoney cross) which is only 30 minutes away with my megrez 90 (f6.2) and a mini giro II mount.

I wanted to get a good southern horizon to hit the sagittarius messiers and by 23.00 the milky way with about mag 5 skies was clearly visable so i poured my self a tea and got to work .

I firstly went to M 22, this globular is very impressive its just a pitty it doesn't get very high from these lattitudes. Nonetheless using a 5mm radian the edges were well resolved with direct vision.

I then couldn't help but notice the huge glow of M 24 so poppped in the 28mm Uwan for TFOV of 4.1 and it was just stunning! I found myself scanning this area for a good 40 minutes mainly because it is so vast like a huge open cluster but also flanking M 24 are M 23 and M 25 both open clusters.

When you move up to the top of the star cloud the unmistakable nebulosity of M17 is visable.

When using a 11mm T6 nagler and a lumicon UHC filter this showed considerable detail with mottling evident.

Further up is M 16 which again using the same combination showed some of the nebulosity around the star cluster.

I left the lagoon nebula (M 8) to last and it was an impressive site. Using a 11mm T6 nagler and a Lumicin O-III filter there was a wealth of detail present. The dark bisecting dust lane was evident as well as the nebula having a mottled appearence. M 20 was evident just above however not particular impressive relative to its more illustrious neighbour.

I next moved up to Cygnus and away from the sky glow from Bournemouth and Southampton scanning across there the number of stars visable was mind boggling! I'm not even sure if i saw M 29 and M 39 but once i popped a O-III filter on my 22mm Panoptic the glow of the North America nebula (NGC 7000) appeared near deneb. I have never seen this object before and it is HUGE!

I swang my scope around next to the visable naked eye glow of the double cluster (NGC 869/884) and it was spectacular sight! Using the 17 mm T4 nagler both clusters were encompassed in a very rich starfield set against an inky black sky, how did messier leave this off his list:icon_scratch:. I sat and watched this for 20 minutes and thought that this is a view everyone should see!

By this time it was 1.00 and i was getting rather cold and the local deer population was getting curious as to what i was doing so called it a night.

The views i had last night of a number of objects were far better than what i normally see at home with my MN68 and it shows what i difference a dark sky makes.

I think i will try and make these trips more regularly as it is well worth trip!

Thanks

Adam

[DarkerSky]

Sounds like a super night there Adam. An impressive haul of targets too.

[Talitha]

Fantastic report Adam, i hope you get the chance to go back there soon.

Nice that it's only a 30 minute drive.