Tripping through Aquila

Conditions:
No moon, clear but with some clouds, good transparency, medium seeing.

Targets Observed:
M11 (Wild Duck Cluster), M26, 15 Aql, 57 Aql, Beta Aql, M57 (Ring Nebula)

Notes

A funny thing happened on my way through Aquila. I set out a few targets for myself, the double stars 15 Aql, 57 Aql and Beta Aql as well as some open clusters - NGC 6709 and 6755 and Cr 401.

I saw nothing of these things. Instead I saw many other wonderful things.

To start with the night was so dark and clear that the dust lanes in the Milky Way through Cygnus were plainly visible, even a few minutes after lights out. There is no moon in the sky and only a few small cumulus clouds scudding in from the Strait, and the clarity and transparency was great. I began trying to resolve the double stars in Aquila, but couldn't. Instead I turned the scope on my favourite Messier target at the moment, M11 in Scutum. It lies at the end of one of my current favourite asterims, a hook that runs through Lamba Aql and into Scutum. 15 Aql lies in the crook of this hook. Below M11 is M26, another lovely open cluster, though not as impressive as M11.

As I scanned with the binoculars for 57 Aql, something caught my eye near 51 Aql which is just to the south west. There I spotted a slowly moving sattelite (perhpas geostationary) which seemed to be tumbling. It would give off bright flashes of light at about 11 second intervals, with less bright pulses coming around 6 or 7 seconds.

The Ring Nebula was just overhead so I finished with a peek at it. Structure resolved with the 10mm eyepiece and the Barlow didn't help.

Next I'm going to look at Scutum before it disappears behind the trees.

Update: The sattelite is ETS-6, a decommissioned Japanese test sattelite which is well known for its 11 second period. Ain't the Internet great.