The sky was of decent quality, with the Milky Way prominent from Cassiopeia down to the tail of Scorpius. The branch pushing into Ophiuchus was obvious as was the Great Rift. The others were sitting back in their chairs watching meteors and shouting out when one was spotted. They ranged from dim to very bright, and were scattered from near Cassiopeia all the way into Sagittarius. A Starlink constellation also passed over as well, piquing their interest.
I was at the Z10 for a great deal of time picking out some objects to show anyone who was interested in looking. I also talked about the constellations as I pointed them out. I also discussed asterisms contained within some of the constellations, and also the nature of the DSOs seen. While I managed the scope, I shared with the family the likes of:
Messier 13: The great Hercules cluster was seen in beautiful glory in the 10 inch. Easily spotted in the 8x10 RACI optical finder, in the 13mm Ethos (96x) it was outstanding. Many stars were resolved and it presented a shimmering affect to the viewers, who were suitably impressed by its grandeur.
Messier 22: This fine globular was likewise easily seen in the finder scope, and at 96x also presented itself gloriously. Heavily resolved, this large globular was quite impressive to everyone who had a look.
Messier 27: The famous Dumbbell Nebula was quite large and bright in the Z10 at 96x. Its characteristic dumbbell or apple core center was very apparent. Its diffuse disk was quite showy in the eyepiece even without use of a filter.
Albireo (Double Star): When I centered this showcase double star in the scope at 96x, I asked those who observed it to tell me the colors they saw in the stars. All agreed that one was blue, but the second star were seen as orange, yellowish-orange and reddish-orange, depending upon the person.
NGC 6960 (Western Veil Nebula): At this point, I put in the 21mm Ethos (59X) and star hopped from mag 2.5 Epsilon Cygni to 52 Cygni (mag 4.2). I could just see hints of the western Veil, but after screwing in the O-III filter it was quite apparent as a long scraggly finger of eerie light passing just east of 52 Cyg. As I described the nature of this object as a supernova remnant of a star that blew it top about 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, some had a look. Once viewed, I then removed the filter to show just how much using the filter truly boosts its aooearance because of its specific pass bands.
NGC 457: Cassiopeia was gaining a little altitude now, and I quickly found this nice cluster just over 2° SSW of mag 2.7 Delta Cas. Easily spotted in the RACI as a small diffuse glow, with two tiny jewels at its southeastern edge, I again had the 13mm in the focuser. Viewed at 96x it was in full reveal, with the two bright stars dominated the field with the other dimmer stars sprawled out in their typical pattern. I queried some if they could see a recognizable pattern to the stars in the cluster. No one could concretely come up with anything until I mentioned that while it has various nicknames, I prefer the Owl Cluster. After sharing that detail with them, they then could see what I was talking about.
Double Cluster (NGC 869 and 889): This hobby favorite combination of two related open clusters were a little low, but easily spotted with the naked eye. Putting the scope on it using 59x (21mm) framed the pair nicely and they were on full display, impressing all who got up to take a look. They were quite beautiful, even to me, who has seen them countless times over the decades.
M31, M32 and M110: I next noticed that M31 was easily visible to the naked eye though a little lower in the sky. I pointed it out to Justin and he confirmed that he could see it easily. Moving to the eyepiece I dropped the 13mm (96x) and could just squeeze M31, 32 and 110 into the field of view. I explained to him that this was the closest major galaxy to our own at only about 2.2 MLY away and that it and our galaxy were moving toward one another and eventually would merge. I then drew his attention to the two smaller galaxies in the field of view indicating there were satellite galaxies of M31.
Placing M31 in the center of the field, he could easily see M32 and M110 at the opposing edges of the field, framing the primary member of the trio. I then mentioned that M32 and M110 were actually the same visual magnitude, but that one could clearly see that the latter appears obviously dimmer. Initially this baffled him a little until I then explained the concept of surface brightness. To illustrate its impact I asked him to find a nearby brighter field star and defocus it slowly. While the star’s light became more and more spread out , thus dimming its appearance to the eye, the visual magnitude was still the same. The dimming was the result of the light being spread over a larger angular area, as is the case with M32 (smaller and brighter) and M110 (larger and dimmer).
I then had Theo take a look. While he could easily see the large and bright body of M31, he had difficulty seeing the other two at the edge of the field of view. So I centered each of them and he then could see the satellite galaxies easily. As typical he then returned to the group to engage in chatter!
So it was a bit of a mixed bag outing with family. Theo went to bed about 2330 hours, as did his aunt. Unfortunately Theo only saw two meteors himself, as I think he was more about engaging with others and looking around the dark terrain than up at the sky so much. His uncle stayed out with Mary and me a while longer, and he then called it a night just after midnight. Mary and I stuck with it until after 0030 hours. The air had cooled a lot and the outside temp was around 57° F (13.9° C). There was a lot of dew and everything was getting quite damp, including us. Once the others had gone in I sat with Mary as we looked around some more, but the meteors seemed to be slowing down a bit.
We didn’t really keep track of how many meteors were seen, but overall we guess perhaps 30 to 40 total were spotted by the group. The evening wasn't just about meteors anyway, rather more about family sharing some time under the dark country sky. So at that time the two of us called it a night and put the stuff back in the garage and headed in for a good night’s sleep.
We plan to be back out there again the next night with Theo to see how things go as we get closer to the forecasted peak. The forecast isn’t the best, but hopefully it will allow us to see some nice meteors gracing the dark country sky, between the clouds if need be! Thanks for following along and I hope you also had the opportunity to view some of what the Perseids have to offer.
