Stepping out at midnight though, initially the sky was quite disappointing. After the pristine sky earlier I'd expected much better but it seemed perhaps pollutants or very high haze / whatever had spoiled the sky somewhat and I could barely see the Milky Way which wasn't a good sign... The neighbours' lights were still on as well not helping the situation!
Undeterred, I started with something bright and not so affected by lighter sky - M13. The glob of course is spectacular in the 12" resolving right down to the core using the 7mm Pentax. Its "companion" galaxy was also visible, this was at least an indication that transparency was sufficient to continue for some fainter stuff a bit later.
First though, while I waited for the neighbours to switch off their lights and hopefully get a bit more darkness I went on to M57.. Again, using the 7mm Pentax for 214x was a nice power which showed the bright oval "doughnut" of the nebula well.
On to M27.. Which I'd realised I hadn't oberved for at least 4 years! Not sure how I'd not come back to this one seen as it's really a fantastic example and just how much an OIII filter improves the view. Without a filter, the nebula is large and very obvious but the shape is quite indistinct, although the brighter central region is still obvious as well as the extension. With an OIII filter, the nebula becomes a completely different beast, the central "hour-glass" form stunningly prominent with the two lobes also shown extensively. The Baader 10nm filter with the further restricted bandwidth actually gave a significant boost in contrast for these lobes over the Astronomik filter. I tried the UHC filter which gave a "boosted" version of what could be seen without a filter but was far from the view with the OIII. A Hbeta filter showed only the central hour-glass with perhaps slightly more brightness added to the top and bottom of this shape.
OK, so after spending a reasonable amount of time with M27, finally I'd got a bit more darkness back - The Milky Way was visible but without any structure. On my list was the
With the OIII / 32mm Plossl still in place, I headed to the North American Nebula,
A switch now from nebulae to galaxies...
A short hop from
Moving on to M33, the key factor of transparency was very much more apparent to what I'd encountered the previous night. the same eyepiece used: The 28mm Maxvision, but tonight the galaxy was ghost-like, barely on the edge of visibility.
Further up to M31 it was a little better, M110 showing again very well with M31's dust lanes quite extensive. I tried for the bright nebula,
I was just about able to get to Saturn, however the seeing was not great. Nice image though, although with the 102ED it was far better the previous night!
Jupiter - Quite a surprise as I pointed the scope to this to see 2 shadow transits from Io and Ganymede. Some nice detail of whorls within the belts very occasionally with the 7mm Pentax at 214x although the seeing was seriously variable. I stayed observing Jupiter for quite a while with the transits until Io actually was inside Jupiter's disc along with the
I finished up with Mars but the seeing was nowhere near good enough. I could just about make out an indistinct dark region.
Finishing up close to 4am, it had been a nice productive night despite not ideal conditions... I still have 18 items on my list I didn't get to... :p Perhaps tonight....