This is a late report, and one not from LBRP, but rather from my driveway in Potomac. The sky conditions were really good by midnight, although I started viewing earlier by 10:00. For the most part, I stayed pretty high to the zenith until about 11:30, when I ventured lower toward the horizon.
Equipment: NGT-18 with Parracor Focal length 2230 measured.
10:00pm
M5 - Magitude 5.8, viewed at 52 degrees in altitude using Panoptic 35. The sky had not yet settled out the dew, and it was about to fall, so the skies were pretty milkey. In additon, the sky was still pretty bright. Astronomical twilight ended 30 minutes later. The cluster was resolvable, but not very notable in this viewing.
M104 viewed using 13mm Nagler.
Mag 8.6. Viewed 25.5 degrees of altitude. Could see the bright nucleus and the arms. in the 13mm, the object appeared to be about 2.5 arc-seconds in length. The published size of the object is 8.7x3.5 arc minutes, but RealSky shows it to be more like 5.8 arc minutes in length. I was apparently seeing about half of the full extension of the galaxy.
M64 - The dust lane was clearly visible in this object, and to my great pleasure, I could also see the spiral stucture of the arms. The object was viewed at 47 degrees of altitude.
M53 - The globular was clearly visible. In the 10mm Nagler, the cluster took up the entire field of view. The dense core took up one third of the FOVof the eyepiece, and the stars were completely resolved in the core. Field stars were visible and were brighter than the cluster stars. I could see these stars down to magnitude 14.
A Stretch
NGC 5053 This globular is mag 9.8 and would have been a stretch. I thought once I had glympsed the cluster, but the the sighting may have been mostly hope.
Lower in the sky
M11 - M11 is always great. I noticed what looked like a dark U shaped segment inside the core of M11. The U shaped area was visible in the 13MM nagler. I slipped in the 10mm, and looked at the core. The U shaped area was less apparent, and the magnification darkened the sky. The U shaped area filled with the dimmer stars.
I noticed not a single bit of turbulence in the 10mm, and upped magnification to 465x. The core of M11 was completely resolved, and the skywas absolutely calm during the time Ihad the eyepiece in the holder.
End of observing session
Steve Robinson
M17 - Using the 20mm Nagler and theOIII (111.5x) M17 was a picture. I have never just looked through a scope and seen M17 like this. I took an image of M17 last year using the ST-6 and my C8, and I think the view was
comparable. The view was simply and completely great!
M8 - Ditto for M8. Both lobes were clearly visible. Note that both of these objects were well inside of the light dome of Washington DC, and were not very high above the horizon, and even with those disadvantages, M8 and M17 both were just great. Just a note about the image of M8, The view in the 18 was a lot better than this. For one thing, there was no overexposure
as there is in the image.
But beyond that, the hazy lower lobe was much clearer than what showed up here. In all fairness to the CCD image, however, I should add that the skies were just awful the night the image was taken. Clouds were moving in, and my skies to the south are pretty bad.
