Five Hrs Viewing

[Herakles]

From 2200Hrs until 0300Hrs I had the chance to do some visual stuff.

Equipment

Celestron 80mm ED

EQ5P

8-24 Baader Zoom

Set up the EQ5P , PA'd it , aligned two stars. Good to go. There was no real order to where I was sending the scope, more a test of its Goto success. It put targets in the FOV but not slap bang in the center , need to tighten that up. Anyway , here's a list of what I saw. Sky conditions were not brilliant most of the time , although there were no clouds as such , the seeing was half decent but from my garden there are two street lights that need seeing to !

Messiers bagged.

M31 ( couldn't make out M32/M110 , washed out by M31 in the wee fract' )

M29

M39

M2 ( very very faint )

M15 ( again very feint )

M34

M57

M27

Had a look at NGC869 ( The Double Cluster ) , always nice to see in WF view.

Decided to have a look at some doubles as well .

Albireo, beautiful as always

17 Cygnus

Polaris ( companion very dim beside it)

Nu Dra , absolutely gorgeous , like 2 yellow cats eyes looking back at you !

Eta Cas , yellow, comp' very dim

Epislon Peg, bright yellow , dim comp'

Epison Lyr , both similar size , both white , noticed a really smaller dimmer star between them(nearer E2) ,not able to see eachs other comp' probs due to small aperture , or seeing ?

61 Cyg , both very similar , both yellow

Zeta Lyr , both looked white,comp' smaller

Delta Cep, yellow with smaller blue comp'

Almach , hard to make out for me , possibly still low in the murk , need to return later on to it in winter skies.

Had to have a look at Jupiter , usual four Moons showing , Io very close. I then thought have a try at Uranus. dialled it in , bingo ( my first sight of it actually ) , it's teeny , small blue dot , sitting all alone in the dark around it.

All in all an amazing night , esp' for the Doubles . Think I will be doing these a lot more . Was good using the 8-24, able to start at 24 and zoom down to 8mm. First really good night of observing from my garden since about March .

I will need to definately sort out light spill from a neighbours front door light . Maybe have a word with them, its always on through the night, no real need for that TBH. If no joy with them ,then I will construct a light screen to block it out. There are two other street lights ( the orange type ) that can be blocked out from the garden with a little work with a screen as well.

Also was nice just to observe without imaging , I heartily recommend this ( as I have before ) to all who image .

Really connects you again to why you first got into this hobby.

Really looking forward to Darker nights coming in now.

Clear Skies

Pete

[Talitha]

Well done Pete, and congratulations on your first sighting of Uranus!

Might your neighbors agree to your purchasing a motion detector for their light and having it installed? They'd retain their feeling of security, and you'd have one less light to avoid.

[iamjulian]

Sounds like a great session. Also gives me an idea of the advantages of GOTO as your list would do me for a month Good luck with the neighbours!