First observing session after summer

Against all odds the sky cleared up yesterday evening, and the hard core of our local astronomy club deicded to go out observing. We used an 18-inch f/5 Dob with a Swayze mirror, and concentrated on a few objects.
Unfortunately M16 and M17 were blocked by clouds, but M11 was magnificent with low power (31mm Nagler). The sky background is richly populated with faint stars, but the cluster stands well out. I noticed very little colour in the cluster, but since it is so rich, it is very beautiful.
Next object on the list was M27 in Vulpecula. It is a grand object with this aperture, showing considerable structure, and several foreground (background?) stars. It was best at moderate power (16mm Nagler), and an O-III filter increased the amount of detail, particularly in the outer parts. It was interesting to notice "ears" in the SE/NW directions where I have not seen anything with smaller aperture.
The Veil complex is superb with this aperture. The 31mm Nagler/O-III combo showed an enormous detail in the filamentary structure already in the region near 52 Cygni. The middle part also showed many patches of nebulosity, and the eastern part of the loop was very bright and extremely detailed. Although the nice colours shown in many photos were absent, nothing compares with the direct view of this nebula through the eyepiece.
We were not able to see the central star of M57 in Lyra. Seeing was not perfect, and even with an 18-inch aperture this difficult to detect against the nebulous background.
We finished by observing the galaxies, M33 and M31. The spiral structure of M33 was evident at first glance and the spiral arms were decorated with emission regions. This galaxy would rank high on a list of the best objects for an 18-inch scope. The view of M31 was even more incredible. We were not prepared for a search for globulars, and thus we didn't really make out more details than can be glimpsed with smaller telescopes. However, with such an aperture the dust bands, the core and spiral arm segments are readily seen without straining the eyes. It is just to lean back and enjoy the view.


Inge S

Inge, thanks for the report! You seem to be lost to the big aperture syndrom . . .

I was also out yesterday, and also for the first time under really dark sky. The cat (animal) and the harbour police visited me again. It was the first time I saw some dramatic structure in galaxies!

First I said goodbye to the few summer Messiers that are seen from here - M2, M3 and M10-14. After that I looked at the big galaxies - M31, where I saw the dust lane as a lane and not as a sharp edge for the first time. M32 and M110 showed tiny stellar cores at hight power. Then I (finally!) saw the spiral arms of M33! Two big arms and also suspected short arm between them. This galaxy is going to be placed better, so I hope to find out about that third arm.

Then came the turn of small and faint galaxies - NGC 147 and 185 (the first was somewhat hard but I could see the elongation, the second was easy), and two tiny fluffs of NGC 278 and 404. NGC 891 readily showed its dark lane to averted vision, and the black rifts in the Milky Way above looked like its extreme close-up!

I finished with the Cepheus pair NGC 6946/6939, but I couldn't see any structure in the galaxy (only suspected), and the cluster showed less stars than I anticipated. I looked at the corrector plate, it was covered with dew.

Dmitri