August Star Party (part 2)

I am going to finish the August review now, since we are nearly to November.  You can see the previous entry.

As I said, Vega was immediately apparent almost straight up.  Which meant that Lyra was almost directly overhead.  So, I went and got M57, the ring nebula, as a test of my personal seeing that night.  It was a bit fuzzy, but the night was not yet completely dark.  I did manage to split the double double (epsilons).  So, not too bad.

Cygnus was also there, so, since Kathy likes it so much, I took a look at Albireo.  Beautiful, blue and gold double.

Then I looked to the southwest for some reason.  I almost never look there, because in this particular location, it is usually pretty washed out with the lights of the nearby city.  However, on this night, I could see the head of Scorpius.  So, M80 was available.  This is supposed to be easy to see, or perhaps I should say easy to find.  In fact “M80 is very easy to find”.  Indeed it was easy (as I did in fact find it).  M80 is a globular cluster, and it was a little puff in my scope.

From there, I realized that I was seeing the teapot of Sagittarius.  I remember the teapot from our time in Great Basin.  Even though I was not seeing it as well on this occasion, I knew that there were several interesting objects here.  I decided to try for M22, another globular cluster.  Supposed to be very bright, and even larger than M13.  So, yes, that was there even in the sub-optimal conditions.

Scutum, then to the north of Sagittarius, and M11 (the wild duck).  Some of the other observers on the site were looking at that, so I decided to give it a shot.  And there it was.  Quite bright open cluster.  Could not really see a duck (wild or otherwise).  Charlie agreed on the lack of duckness.  I was not seeing the detail in my 6″ that he was getting in his much larger scope, it was still quite a sight.

To finish off the new objects of the night, I went after M6 and M7 (back in Scorpius).  Both open clusters near the stinger, which was now in view.  Bright big, though not everything was visible on this night in this spot.  Still, I had two more M objects.

I felt as though I was seeing really well this night.  The Perseid meteors were happening.  I did not see much of that, but I did hear lots of reactions from the others.  I was enjoying being able to find things, and did not want to give that up for the chance of a meteor.  A few though I did catch.  Pretty spectacular actually, since usually I do not have much luck with meteors.

My year round marathon continues. . . .

Lately I have noticed Pegasus and Andromeda and Cassiopeia in the sky.  Very clear lately, but a bit of interference from the Moon (which lately is full and near full).  That will soon fade.  I hope the sky stays clear.  (Though a little rain or snow during the day won’t hurt.)

This entry was posted in Looking Up, Star Parties. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *