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21st October, after the storm. 1st sight of NA visual


philjay

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Despite the storms during the day the wind settled by 20.00 and the skies cleared giving a brief couple of hours. I set up the Meade 127mm ED Triplet in the observatory for a short visual session.


 


Started with M31,32,110 with the 30mm Vixen Lanthanum 2". Lovely view. 110 quite prominent.


 


NGC7331, Main member of the Deer Lick group.  30mm showed faint small elongated galaxy. 22mm isolated it a little and gave better contrast but couldn't make out any surrounding galaxies with certainty.


 


61 Cygni, had to try this with the 127. My 5mm LVW got the 10th mag background sta,r that these two stars are passing, easily.


 


M13, Crisp as ever. 13mm resolves the core very well.


 


Veil,NGC6960 side, with 30mm Vixen unfiltered a faint arc could be seen direct but averted vision and moving the fov made it stand out.


 


Seeing 6960 gave me an idea, as the North American Nebula was straight overhead I would give it a bash visually.


Unfiltered with the 30mm vixen, nothing tangible, I thought I saw something but couldn't be sure. I then swapped for my 22mm LVW with a Lumicon H Beta emission nebula filter and this isolated the background nicely enough for me to see a faint ghost of a wavy line. I had no idea what part I was looking at but can only assume it was the bright region in the Mexico area. I removed the filter but could'nt see anything, then tried an O111 but that was worse. I then shifted the scope and put in the H Beta filter again and slewed till I could see something and got the same ghost region again. So I have seen something of the NA I reckon, whehey :D


 


M27, Visual nice and bright with the 22mm LVW with outer lobes just evident. O111 filter popped the nebula right out and showed the outer lobes well also a Z shape structure in the core could be seen.


 


M45, nice to wander around this with the 30mm. Still a bit low and in Derby sky glow so wasn't at its best.


 


Stock 2 Open Cluster in Cass. Wide sparse cluster forming 2 crescents of stars back to back with a short line of 2-3 stars joining their centres. Nice view.


 


Whilst in the are I popped over to the Double Cluster. The 30mm shows this nicely but I like to go in a bit deeper with the 13mm LVW which shows off the colours a bit more.


 


Stock 1 in Cygnus. Sparse open cluster with 2 definite areas of concentration forming a mini Pleiades in one and a box with horns on the other. The mini Pleiades section has double STF2548 in it which split easy with the 22mm.  


 


Popped over to M57 then packed away due to cloud and a bit of rain coming in.


 


By heck I needed that :D It may have only been an hour and a half (ish) but it was nice to get the scope out under a dark sky again


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Nice read there Phil.


I reckon you did well seeing the NA neb with any light pollution about. Try a UHC next time , that worked well at Kelling for me.


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Cracking good report Phil, it was blowing a gale here most of the night so didn't dare go out with the sail. ;)

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