first luck with binoculars

[Ags]

My puppies can't sleep so I came down to see to them. On an impulse I took our really rubbish IR Optics 16x50 binoculars with me into the garden. I naked-eye glimpsed M31 while watching the Perseids this week so I wanted to try see it with my binoculars.

I used the sharp angle in the Cassiopeia zigzag as a pointer and followed its path. With only a little searching - I found it! M31, looking lovely and full of detail, a bright core with a faint edge-on disk extending to each side.

Then I followed the bottom two stars of the Cassiopeia zigzag down by a distance equal to their separation - and found the double cluster - the first open star cluster I have actually seen properly since taking up astronomy as a hobby after a long long break. It looks really compact and pretty. I will have a go at it with my telescope tomorrow.

I will definitely be taking my binoculars out more often, but maybe I need to buy better ones. These ones seem to smear all the stars slightly and the images in eyepiece don't seem to quite line up....

Really pleased, and glad I am not entirely relying on GOTO and electronics. Many thanks to the Astronomy Now sky map.