It became unexpectedly clear. BBC were forecasting cloud and the Met office images from a few hours earlier in the day didn't show anything promising but looking out after 20:30 hours should excellent looking skies and with my head buzzing with wonder over what this mysterious object was near M33 I had to fight my fatigue and force myself out to get a second look at this object.
The classic astronomers jinx predictably happened too. I got setup and ready to observe, slewed to Jupiter and to M15 to observe, while I waited for the Triangulum to rise a bit higher over the roof of my parents house, and just as I did it clouded over.
I waited it out and was rewarded with very clear skies afterwards.
I went straight for M33 and could barely see it due to poor transparency and a rather bright moon. So I got my UHC-S filter into action and the view improved quite a bit. I could see bright blobs through out the center of the galaxy but I started to slew the scope to the direction of where I saw the object from the previous night. Using a lot of AV I could manage to see it, the poor transparency and moon were making it more difficult to see and as I was fighting fatuige so staying out until the moon passed below the horizon was not an option for me.
I really spent a good bit of time looking at this object, something close to 15 minutes of constant staring and breathing in and out deeply to get plenty of oxygen to my brain and eyes to try and give me that extra bit of better vision.
After that I wrote down the RA and DEC and called it a night.
I started up Starry Night this morning and went to the coordinates I wrote down and to my shock I have been observing NGC 604! I thought I had observed this from my night out on the 21st but obviously not.
I never in my life thought I would ever see another nebula, or another object for that matter, in another galaxy through armature equipment.
The UHC-S filter is starting to become an invaluable accessory to me.
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