Geoff (6" Dob) NickD (8" ADAS Meade) Chris (Miyauchi 20x77 binoculars) and myself spent a lovely three hours stargazing from one of our local dark sky sites. The sky was slightly hazy with a limiting magnitude of +4. I could easily make out Cr 399 and the Scutum Star cloud with the naked eye. The seeing was excellent ANTII but unfortunately it was breezy. I spent most of the time hunting down faint globular's and planetary nebulae through my 12" and 24 Pan. Whilst the others just had a look around the sky. I particularly like Geoff's 6" dob. It is a very neat well made telescope with excellent optics.
Below is a brief account of what I saw.
Globular Clusters
M13 in Hercules. It was very nice to compare the view of M13 through Nick and Geoff's telescopes. I think that Geoff's image of M13 was probably one of the best views I have seen in a telescope of this aperture. It appeared small, round and granular. Through my 12"M13was a glowing ball of star light.
Visible through my 12" were the globular's M14 M10 M12 Ophiuchus NGC 6760 Aquila NGC 6934 Delphinus and M15 Pegasus. M14 M10 and M12were resolved and appeared as gra iny balls of star light. M15, because it is brighter and bigger was clear and bright with many stars visible almost to its core.
NGC 6760 and 6934 were difficult globular's to resolve because of there size and magnitude. Both appeared as tiny and slightly granular balls of star light. You need high power to see resolve them into individual stars.
Planetary Nebulae
I also had a look at some small planetary nebulae. I had a look at the show piece objects M57 and M27. But also some of the lesser known ones.
NGC 6572 Ophiuchus NGC 6803 Aquila NGC 7009 Aquarius and the Cats eye nebula in Draco.
We all had a look at Neptune and Uranus. They appeared as tiny round fuzz balls in my 12" and the ADAS Meade.
Towards midnight we started to see a number of Persid meteors. Which were bright and slow. Lets hope it is clear next Wednesday for the peak.
by Paul Brierley
Comments