Harvest Moon

Conditions:
Full moon, transparency 3/5, seeing 8/10

Targets Observed:
Moon

Music
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Notes
I spent some time this afternoon charting some of the double stars in Pisces, Aquarius, Andromeda and Cepheus in preparation of an evening of locating easier targets in bright skies. The moon tonight, appraching full in a couple of hours, was just too much. The sky is dark blue and the harvest moon a brilliant white. The terminiator is far into the zone of librations, transecting Hedin. Everything is washed out and without a filter, it actually hurts to look at it too long.

When I was getting some advice about using my scope back in July, the people at the shop were telling me to wait until Spetember to see what steady skies are really all about. It's amazing to see the moon without it feeling like I'm looking through a glass of water. Too bad I can't FIND any doubles, let along split them. Ah well. Nights like this are made for simply breathing it all in.

Targets in Aquarius and M31, M32 and M110

Conditions:
Seeing 5/10, transparency 2/5 some cloud, new moon

Targets Observed:
Uranus, Phi Aqr, 94 Aqr, zeta Aqr, M31, M32, M110

Notes
Began with a sweep around Aquarius. Started with Uranus which lies below the waterjarat the base of a wide triangle of stars. Unremarkable tonight, and in fact I had to comfirm it on the star charts.

Phi Aqr is a very wide triple, easily seen in bnoculars, and below it lies 94 Aqr which could not be split at low power but at 91x it resolved into two stars, one brighter whitish one and a smaller red or pink one.

Zeta Aqr was not split satisfactorily. Even with the Barlow I can just barely see the serperation.

Turned to M31 complex and sketched all three galavies. Before I could really concentrate on trying to see some detail, cloud moved in and suspende the play's day.

Deep sky in Pegasus and Cassiopeia

Conditions:
Seeing 7/10, Transparency 2/5, some cloud, moon at 21.6% waning (set)

Targets Observed:
NGC 7331, NGC 7789, M52, M31, M32, M110

Notes

Great night for viewing. Skies were mostly clear and steady. I decided to try to find NGC 7331 one and I was successful. The galaxy lies off the southwest corner of the Great Square of Pegasus, found by following the longer branch of a "Y" made with Matar at the centre. There are a whole bunch of galaxies in this field, but with my scope this was the only one that could be seen, and even then it was only really perceived with averted vision. The galaxy has a fine spiral structure, but I could only see a very faint glow. Not liable to resolve much with only 90mm of aperture! A rare sight nonetheless, and I sketched it in my new sketch book. As I was viewing it, a meteor streaked through the field.

Cassiopeia was rising over the trees, so I tried with some of her finer open clusters. NGC 7789 is a rich cluster, lying between sigma and rho Cas, just southwest of beta Cas. It's a big patch of fuzz in the binos, resolving to an intricate cluster in the scope with hundreds of stars. After admiring this beauty it was on to M52, the latest sketch in my Messier collection. Dickinson describes this as a mini Pleides, which I can see. It has the same kind of shape, and one really bright star with most members in the 10th magnitude. M52 lies one binocular field northwest of beta Cas.

I was going to go in after that, but M31 had cleared the trees, and so I turned the scope on it and was able to easily pick out the companion galaxies M32 and M110. Was going to sketch but grew tired. I'll try in the next few days when they are well placed and the moon is down.

NGC 663

Conditions:
Medium seeing, poor transparency, moon at last quarter

Targets Observed:
NGC 663, M31, M110

Notes
Started off looking for NGC 7331 in Pegasus but the moonlight was too bright to find this 9th magnitude galaxy. Turned instead to the open clusters in Casseiopia, and rested on NGC 663. This is a lovely cluster, with a number of stars paired up and appearing to be the same distance apart and the same magnitude. It is the largest of the clusters in a tight filed that includes M103, IC 166, NGC 659 and NGC 654. I'll sketch those later, but tonight I rendered NGC 663.

After that I looked at the Andromeda Galaxy, noticing for the first time M110 as well, quite bright and further away fromt M31's centre than I expected.

Open Clusters in Lacerta

Conditions:
Scattered cloud, medium transprency, poor seeing, moon at 55% waning gibbous

Targets Observed:
NGC 7243 (sketched), NGC 7209, M39

Notes

The sky is changing. Lacerta is high these nights, lying between Cygnus and Casseopeia. Sketched what I could of NGC 7243 tonight. It's a very nice tight cluster mostly consisting of stars no brighter than 9th magnitude that appear to be held in a spiral of brighter stars. The cluster is young at 100 million years old. NGC 7209 was less impressive, but M39, quite a large cluster gave me pause. The moon was up when I began observing, so I stuck to open clusters tonight. Both NGC clusters were easy to find using Deneb, M39 and the brighter stars of the Lacerta asterism