Richard and myself had a productive few hours at Gradbach on Sunday night. I started off early and spent the time digging through DSOs in Cygnus. Richard arrived a little later. He soon set up his new coffee grinder. The LX90 worked very effectively throughout the session. 8 inches was lots of aperture under the darker sky and object location very precise. I observed some bright and interesting planetaries near Deneb, NGCs 7026, 7027 and 7048.An HII region Sh2-112 was easily seen and the Cocoon Nebula was readily apparent using the UHC filter. Use of filters is mandatory to get the best out of a lot of planetary and emission nebulae. I wandered over to Delphinus to the Blue Flash. NGC 6905 at 11.90 was very bright and oval. The Veil was viewed using a 2 inch Deep Sky filter, not the filter of choice but a good view of the whole of the eastern arc was visible in a single FOV. The Footprint nebula and a nearby supernova remnant, Sh2-91 were identified near Alberio. Finishing off the DSOs the Crescent nebula is really a highly recommended showpiece object! The Blinking planetary also performed to it's name. With the arrival of a beautiful crescent moon we finished off whirling through a few nice double stars using Richard's LX90.
by Paul Clark