The sky on Anglesey was lovely and clear on Bank Holiday Monday so I went up in to one of the fields near our caravan and spent a nice session touring the late Summer sky with my TeleVue Ranger and GP mount. There is very little LP from here and by 10:30 when the sky was fully dark the NLM was an easy +6.1. You could see thousands of stars with in the Milky Way as well as the Scutum SC which appears as a ghostly haze to the naked eye .
The seeing was ANT II with excellant transperancy.
What did I see?.
Epsilon Lyrae.
I was able to spilt the double double using my 6 mm LV eyepiece (x80).
M27.
With the Vixen LV zoom set to 8mm (x60) M27 showed a bright nucleus with the outer edges of this planetary fadeing north-south to blend in with the black sky. I used my 24 Pan for a low power view. Thousands of stars filled the fov of the 24mm and M27 was a small ovel spec of gey light.
M16 and M17
24mm Pan and OIII (x20).
Oh my god!.
Tonight M16 reveald it's self to me as a glowing milky haze surrounding a cluster of very young stars. It was very bright through the OIII and 24 mm TV Panoptic. When I used the zoom eyepiece to see more detail I lost the nubulosity and was only able to view the star cluster. So I guess the trick is to use low power on this one.
M17 was also easy to see. It's cheveron shape was quite unmistakable.
I also cought a glimpse of M25 before it disappeard behing the trees
NGC 6960
The Veil nebula.
Looking through the 24mm Pan and OIII, NGC6960 is visible as a grey braided band of nebulosity running north-south. The southern part of NGC 6960 is much brighter. Moving the telescope I thought I could see some of the other portions of this vast SNR but I can not be sure.
M71
With my 6mm LV (x80) M71 appears as a patch of granular haze in a rich Milky Way field.
M13
Again using the 6mm I was nearly able to resolve M13. But, it appeared as a medium sized granular haze which became brighter towards the core.
M31
This galaxy looks good in anything. But my Ranger and 24 mm gave me one of the best views I have seen of this galaxy. A bright nucleus with faint and milky spiral arms were visible in the Ranger and 24 Pan.
M33
This galaxy was also easy to see. It appeard as a spiral haze with a faint nucleus through the 24mm.
Mars
Seeing was not brilliant as the planet was still very low but I was able to see the SPC as well as Mare Erythraeum using my 6mm (x80) Vixen LV.
by Paul Brierley