Quite a good night

[Hypernova]

Last night turned out to be an overall success despite the forecast for complete cloud cover which did eventually come, but I am glad to say that there were a few huge clear slots in this blanket which allowed some very good observations.

So it's around 21:45 and the sky is darkening and the cloud cover is 2/8, I decide that's good enough and I plonk the scope out onto the patio to cool. Leaving it around five minutes I thought I might as well try a few of the brighter objects while I am waiting to pass the time even though the tube hadn't yet cooled to ambient temperature.

First up was Epsilon Lyrae which was visible and near enough due south at that time, separation was discernible at 85x in the Speers-Waler, just but looked quite a bit better when this eyepiece was combined with a barlow, albeit a low quality one.

Twas about 22:15 and after letting the tube cool down some more I pointed it at M57 in Lyrae which looked pretty much the same as it always does, a small smoky donut which gave up more definition in the hole with a little bit of averted vision but nothing more so than any other times I have observed.

I had a crack at locating M56 which has always been a fairly tricky target for me to find and observe, I had to resort to looking at the start atlas to find any asterisms that may help me locate this faint little glob. Where eventually found it was visible a small hazy patch with no resolved stars visible. I did though attempt to use a barlow to improve the resolution but it was at this time that the weather forecast came true and a large blanket of cloud rolled in and I thought the whole night was over.

This bank of cloud was moving pretty quickly and thankfully after around quarter of an hour or so the clouds finally drifted away to reveal a beautifully clear sky and surprisingly dark for the Crewe area.

So I thought after that with the changeable weather I decided to knuckle down and add some objects to my messier count. I thought I might as well try and bag some of the objects fairly low down in the west around Ursa Major, it was these objects that I might not have a good opportunity to view in the next few months. There was one object which I really wanted to see, one of the only real mistake in Messier's catalogue, M40. I found it not too difficult to find, little over a degree above Megrez it presented itself as a wide double star with each component of approximately equal brightness. I am surprised though to hear that it is of around 10th magnitude which I always think is pushing it a bit in light polluted skies like mine, it certainly didn't look as faint as that so it must that these hilux coatings are doing their job as intended and boosting the reflectivity considerably which I am very pleased with.

I also have to mention that this observation was carried out while dodging quickly moving cloud banks.

Following this I took a brief intermission to view M51 which looked just like a faint double nucleus fuzz and not really that interesting.

After that I thought I might as well challenge my self and attempt possibly one of the most difficult objects which is M101, the faint face on spiral in Ursa Major. It took a fair bit of looking through the finder and going back and forth between the start atlas and the scope to get to the right star field which I found to marked to the SW by a faint T-shaped asterism which was clearly visible in the star atlas and in the finder. But I confess that even though I was in the right area and was as dark adapted as I could be with neighbour's bathroom light, I failed to detect even the faintest hint of this galaxy so I admitted defeat and moved. Though not before enjoying the crisps, clear sky that was visible above me

So continuing on my hunt for new messiers I decided to go even lower in the sky and hunt around Canes Venatici for the two bright galaxies that reside there.

First up was M94, being in a sparse part of the sky that had no obvious bright pointer stars to help guide me I though it would be a paint to find but this wasn't so. I only had to draw perpendicular lines from 10 CVn and HIP 63356 and pint the finder where I saw that they might meet up and there it was in the centre of my FOV. Remarkably bright for a galaxy, it's core was extremely dense and bright, there was not much detail visible outside of the core apart from a small faint halo but I didn't mind. I admit it was so bright and condensed in the eyepiece that I actually thought for a minute I had stumbled across a bright comet that no one knew about

Moving on to my other target M106 in CNv, this one was a little tricky to find and required a fair bit of star hopping but then again that's all part of the fun and makes finding it all the more interesting. I finally managed to pin down the right star field around the magnitude 6.3 star HIP60305. This target was quite a faint one and took a while of letting my eyes adapt and pick up the faint fuzz of this galaxy. I initially saw it in my 25mm plossl and looked like a slightly oval shaped faint fuzz with ever so slight brightening in the very core, no detail visible and almost invisible in the Speers-Waler.

After looking at that final galaxy I looked up satisfied at the sky and noticed Jupiter presenting itself over the houses to my East, at this point it was about 23:30 and it was too low in the sky to be observed with my dob due to my fence, it is times like this that make me wish I had a scope on an eq mount to add height.

I tried in vain to balance the scope on a wobbly garden table to peer over fence but this proved to be fatally flawed as some of the legs were too short and made the whole setup rock from side to side, so that plan was quickly abandoned in favour of waiting and seeing if the bank of cloud which had rolled in would clear to allow to see Jupiter.

It was around this time as there were clear patched in the high East that I saw my first perseid of the year streak past, quite bright at around magnitude 0, extremely quick and glowing in all different colours.

The gaps in the clouds did manage to hold off for long enough to allow me to catch a glimpse of Jupiter over the fence,I think about half the aperture was blocked by the obstruction but i did manage to get a small amount of viewing in which allowed to make out the disk and the missing SEB which was good.

The best thing about the night though was that I finally managed to observe the last planet on my list, Uranus

This one had eluded me last year as I had difficulty finding it amongst the stars below Pisces without any obvious marker to it position, but this year Jupiter has pointed the way in much the same way as it did for Neptune last year.

It looked not very much different form a star but did show a small disk at 85x and a slightly bigger one at 171x, but at this point it was clouding over quite considerably and the seeing was getting worse so I decided to wait till 12 and if the clouds hadn't shifted I'd call it a night. Lo and behold it was 8/8 cloud cover at midnight and I packed everything up and as soon as I had it was clearing up again I get the feeling that clouds have some form of AI and just sit there waiting for the perfect time to inconvenience you.

But even though it was clear again I had work in the morning so I decided to just give up and have decent night's sleep.

All in all a very good night and I have upped my messier count by 3, getting there slowly, and found the last planet on my list. Maybe I'll start looking for minor planets now

Tom.

[Talitha]

Great report Tom, and congratulations on finally bagging Uranus! Shame about the clouds, but you had a fantastic session anyway. Keep chipping away at the Messiers and you'll be done in no time.

[mdstuart]

Lovely report, so many objects in one night. You do not mention M81 / M82. They are worth a try, sorry I love galaxies.. They are a bit like M106 plus another fainter edge on galaxy in the same view...

Thanks for sharing...

Mark

[Tantalus]

Thanks Tom, I enjoyed reading your report. I'll have to have a go at M94 soon, sounds interesting. M57 might be worth another look though, in better conditions. Back in June on a particularly clear night I was able to see some detail in the ring with a modest 5" refractor,

Your bit about balancing the scope on a wobbly table made me laugh... the number of times I've tried balancing my scope in all sorts of questionable positions just to get a look at a target rather than wait for a better opportunity

And congrats on your tally of planets. Does that include the mighty Pluto?

[Hypernova]

Lovely report, so many objects in one night. You do not mention M81 / M82. They are worth a try, sorry I love galaxies.. They are a bit like M106 plus another fainter edge on galaxy in the same view...

Thanks for sharing...

Mark

I have managed to bag m81 and m82, I decided not to observe them on this particular night as I was on the hunt for some new objects.

Does that include the mighty Pluto?

It doesn't I am afraid, I was on the look out for "official" planets. Maybe when I finally get to a dark sight with a clear southern horizon, that will be when I try.

Also I did manage to get a bit of observing in last night as it was fantastically clear. I bagged one more messier, M39 in Cygnus. I found this one fairly tricky to locate as it sits in the middle of a sparse expanse of sky between deneb and Cephus, I had to follow the marker stars in the sky atlas quite closely but I eventually managed to pin it down in the finder after following a faint chain of stars for about 5-10 degrees. This cluster filled the 1 degree FOV of my eyepiece with bright, widely spaced stars. Looked an absolute treat and worth the hunt.

I spent the rest of the night revisiting other messier that I have observed before such as M31, M32, M110, M103 and M13, also managed to get a view of NGC 7331 in Pegasus which I hadn't observed since last autumn.

At one point my mum joined in and I showed here the delights of the double cluster, Eta Cassiopeiae and Jupiter which had just risen above the fence in the east.

I am still waiting for a decent view of Jupiter as last night there was relatively poor seeing close to the horizon and I am not sure the scope was properly collimated so I will have to wait for another night. And maybe my rubbish barlow had something to do with as well.

[Doc]

Wow what a night. A very impressive list of objects, and a very enjoyable read.