I landed at Bragan to a fantastic view. The air was clear, the views were excellent and the wind was almost non existent. I got set up quickly - and didn't forget my finder scope this time - and observed Mars and Saturn while waiting for it to get dark enough.
The quality of the dark sky wasn't as striking as light night but with little wind around I wasn't expecting it to be as dramatic.
Location = Bragan
Equipment = 14" Skywatcher
Start Time = 22:12
Porrima - Gamma Virginis = This pair was beautifully tight. Seeing was a little poor in the southern sky but the 8mm split the double well enough. Both stars appeared to be of similar size and a bright white colour.
17 Virginis - Easily split, with a golden yellow primary and a faint rusty coloured secondary. This was a really enjoyable sight.
Xi Ursa Major - A crisp, clean double that is very tight. The 8mm just about managed to split it and a fine sight it is.
Nu Ursa Major - I never observed this double before and what a stunning sight it is, easily my favourite double of the constellation now. Brilliant golden primary with a striking pin point, diamond white, secondary that is perfectly split in the 8mm. This is a double not to be overlooked.
Palomar 4 - Sue French's new book - "Deep-Sky Wonders" - showed that I was very close to the second most distant globular cluster in our galaxy - the most distant in the northern sky - so how could I go past this...
I was able to find it surprisingly quickly. Appearing brighter than I had expected but nothing more than a blurry smudge at first. Averted vision soon revealed to me the familiar looking structure of a globular and soon after that I could start to pick out some individual stars around the outer edge of the cluster. The core appears rather bright.
It was a thrilling feeling to observe this, especially when knowing that it is over 355,000 light years away.
NGC 3184 - Another one of Sue's suggestions. Quite faint but AV showed a galaxy appearing face on, with two spiral arms. The arms themselves appearing faint and ghostly.
M101 - Another glorious view of this rare treat. Every bit as good as last night. Spiral arms filling the FOV of the 17mm Hyperion.
NGC 2841 - Quite nice, with a large disk and bright core.
NGC 3242 - A fantastic PN and probably 7 years since I last observed it. Appearing very bright and when trying to use AV to see if I could get a hint of the central star this wonderful knotted structure started to form like a ring with in the nebula itself. One of my finest PN observations.
M68 - Considering this cluster was just about 10 degrees above the horizon the view was quite good. Many stars were resolving well. The only let down was the washed out grey looking sky.
NGC 3115 - Large, bright, delicate and lovely. A really bright core with an almost edge on appearance with the disk of the galaxy looking strong. Some small teasing details seemed to appear at times making me want for more.
Mars - Easily the best view I've had all year. No details hidden to the eye. So sharp was the image I could have drawn a map of the surface and would have only for the small fact that I cannot draw...
Finish = 23:42
A thrilling night and so many new objects observed. If I get more nights like this before the season ends then I will have no reason to complain about the weather.
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