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[RobbW]

Wow! Just, WOW! New moon and perfectly clear skies. What could be better! I can't believe how good the seeing was out here in my neck of the suburban woods. I saw so many celestial objects tonight with relative ease, and I was only using my 10x50 binos.

M13 - Hercules Cluster
M7 - Open Cluster in Scorpius
M6 - Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius
M22 - Globular Cluster in Sagittarius
M8 - Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius
And finally...
M31 - Andromeda Galaxy

Not that M31 is all that difficult to find. I'm just never outside late enough to catch it, and I've always wanted to see it.

Anyway, it was a great night for the little bit of observing I got to do. Unfortunately, the forecasts aren't looking as good for tomorrow night, even with the actual new moon. Tonight's forecast was rated as 10 out of 10. Tomorrow is forecast for only 6 out of 10. Oh well, hopefully it will improve between now and then.

Clear skies, all.

[RobbW]

Ooh, yikes. Scratch that. The Accuweather.com Astronomy forecast for tomorrow night has been downgraded to only 2 out of 10!!! What in the world knocked it down so far since just this afternoon?

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Robb,

Now, how cool you observed all of these.

A good night of observing.

From where we were Chicago Astronomer Bill and I could not observe the Lagoon - not even with the C11.

Full account on our session here:

astronomer.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Observations&thread=2782&page=1

I don't think it was a 10 out of 10 night here in Chicago...maybe a 7/8.

But very cool on your session!

[RobbW]

I know, I can't believe I saw the Lagoon either. I didn't really think I would be able too, but the skies were unbelievably dark and transparent, and the seeing was excellent out here. I was just excited with myself for having found and learned where Sagittarius was. Still have many constellations to learn.

I had my sky atlas open to the southeastern sky and was looking for any DSOs it listed as having magnitudes around the same as stars I knew I was able to see. I saw the little splotch on the map for the Lagoon and figured, "What the heck? Let's go for it!"

I grabbed my binos and started slowly scanning the area between the top of the bow and the tip of the arrow in Sagittarius. It didn't even take that long. Within a few seconds of scanning, this string of four stars came into view. They seemed to be surrounded by this dull, grey, wispy stuff that was slightly brighter in some areas and other sections kind of looked patchy or blocked out. I thought, "That can't be it!" Sometimes my bino EPs get foggy, or I'll think I'm seeing something but can't be really sure if I really am seeing something because it is so faint. So, I moved my binos around the sky a bit, but was able to very quickly find the same object again.

I checked my sky chart and verified the stars within the nebula and other stars within the general vicinity. Yep, it had to be the Lagoon. There wasn't anything else in that spot on my chart. Sweet! My first non-star DSO!

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Robb,

This is very cool...and I am smiling for you... ;D

The Lagoon Nebula is supposed to be a naked eye object in dark skies. Here, at Chicago Astronomer site #2, the southern horizon was nearly a solid orange mess. I could not even make out the Teapot.

We observed the brighter stars in the Lagoon, but no sign of the nebula...not even with nebula filters.

No pics of the session?

[Paulie pchris00]

Robb, it seems you were the only one this weekend with any luck to the south. Patrick had some success, finding M7, but for some reason I didn't check it out.

I know that the southern sky was the only place where LP and low muck were much of a problem, so I'm guessing you had a much better view. It's good to see that everybody was able to take advantage of the clear dark sky. Even a girl I know who isn't an astronomer, but is interested in it, messaged me on Facebook today, saying how clear the sky was last night and that she wished she had a telescope.

[RobbW]

Joe, pics of me looking at the sky (ala Chicago Joe style) or pics of what I'm seeing in the sky? Unfortunately, on those few occasions when the sky is clear AND I have the time to get out, it is usually for a short amount of time, 60 or 90 minutes at most. And I'm always by myself. So there is no one there to take pics of me, and I'm usually too busy trying to get the most out of my observing time to set up a camera for self portraits.

As far as pics of what I'm looking at during my sessions, I really have no way to do that. I don't have a telescope system that is conducive to astro photos. I don't have an adapter or a piggyback mount to attach my camera to the scope. Even if I did, my puny scope and mount would merely drop over dead from the weight as soon as I attached my camera.

More often than not, I usually take my binos out for viewing just because I get so little time that I don't want to waste it getting the tripod, mount and scope set up and aligned. It's kind of hard to take pics through a bino, you know?! One of these next two or three nights, while the moon is still in its infancy (and if I can get my daughter to spend the night at her grandparents) I'll try to get out with just my tripod, camera, and zoom lens and see what I can catch on film, er... sensor? Although, I tried doing that one a couple weeks ago, and I can't take anything longer than a 15-second exposure without getting movement from the stars. I really wish I had a working tracking mount for my camera and telescope!

[RobbW]

Paulie, the southern sky certainly wasn't my best view, but it's one I don't get to examine all that much. Most of the time the LP is too bad to pick anything out of the muck. Also, a lot of my observing time lately has been from my backyard, which only provides a small tunnel view of the northern sky. So, since I was able to get across to my neighborhood lake last night, which has views of the southern skies, and the skies were so clear out here, I was able to take advantage of it.

The transparency and seeing were so good that those objects I found in my list above, I was able to find them pretty darn quickly and with a good amount of confidence that I had found what I was looking for. Most of the time I'm never really sure if I found my target. I usually run across an extremely faint blob and I'm like, "I don't know. Is that my target or is it a cloud or is my EP foggy or is it just an out-of-focus star?" Not last night. I found most of my targets in a short amount of time and knew fairly certainly that I had definitely found something. It might have taken a few glances back and forth between my binos and my sky chart to verify that I had, indeed, found what I was looking for. But I always was certain that I had found something other than just another star.