last-night observing session (Awenda)

Now that's weird. It was my last night here at Awenda (like last year's camping trip) and the skies were suddenly clear!

I had an early dinner tonight, again. I could see some whispy clouds through the trees but I pressed on. Washed the dishes, hung my food, kicked out the fire. Packed everything needed. Remembered my palmtop this time (duh). And headed for the dock...

It was quite cloudy in the west but was getting really clear overhead.

I decided to roll the gear down in the wagon and then make my final decision. Before I knew it, I was setting up. But, hey, the skies were improving. Perhaps I could catch a glimpse of Jupiter through the trees...

Intrument: Celestron 8-inch SCT
Mount: Vixen Super Polaris
Method: star hopping

A family dropped by with lots of questions. The guy started off by asking if I was the professional astronomy guy he had heard about. Funny how distorted my legend became in such a short time... Celebrity. Where's my entourage?!

Viewed some double stars. I quoted the number I had just read from the Observer's Handbook: that 85% of stars are doubles or multiples.

When Jupiter poked between some trees, I moved the telescope. I entertained the few people standing around. We could see one moon above, three below. One was really close.

A young man, who lived in Burlington, was photographing the sunset. He took a bunch of pictures of us at the 'scope.

The ISS and shuttle flew by on time, at 9:26 PM. The STS was 10° behind, quite a bit fainter, at first. It was a longer run than predicted, travelling into the south-east.

Showed M57. Again, it seemed there was something in the centre, whether at 77 or 110...

Spotted a bright, short Cygnid as it travelled down through the pot of the Big Dipper.

OK. Primary objective this evening: get some deep sky objects while in dark sky country. And that I did. Using the Sky & Telescope's Messier Card and the Pocket Sky Atlas, I visited M3, M51, M13, M92, M27, and Messier 76 (M76). Wow.

Started at 9:45 PM. Sketched Messier 3 and the surrounding field.

Found Messier 51 very faint. No trouble seeing the main galaxy and its companion. But I could occasionally see swirling arms. It was worse at 110x power.

Viewed Messier 13 in Her at 10:30 PM. It was very bright. Pin-prick stars. So far away... It did not seem perfectly round.

Messier 92 on the other hand was round. It was very bright. The centre was intense. I liked it more than 13.

At 10:55 PM, I saw the Messier 27, the Dumbbell Nebula, in Cygnus. Wow. That was a highlight. It's big! I was surprised how large it was! Very cool. Hints of the overall circular shape. Stars within or coincident with it. I sketched it.

While star hopping to 27, I stumbled across the Coathanger, in Vulpecula, near Albireo and CR399. Leslie's favourite. Ha ha. Funny. That's a great summer asterism to show people in the future...

Then I headed to Perseus, below Cassiopeia, on the hunt for The Little Dumbbell. A rather small faint target. In fact, it almost seemed two separate faint blossoms with a dark rift between.

I briefly considered going for Neptune but realised that Cap would never rise above the trees. Save that for the CAO...

OK. Winding down... Let's snag a few of the Sky & Telescope's favourite summer double stars...

At 11:43 PM, spotted π (pi) Boo. A very close pairing, between 5 and 6" apart. Tough to make the colours. The bright one is perhaps light blue; the dimmer one is pale orange. That said, they are almost equal brightness.

Then went for ζ (zeta) CrB. Another tight pair at 110x, about 6" apart. Pale green and pale green?

As I started packing up, at 11:54 PM, I saw a bright, brief fireball! It travelled from Cam to Lyn, for about 5 to 10°, from 15 or 10° elevation, almost straight down. The changed colours, was briefly white, but as it burned out, it was a bright light green!

Few mozzies this evening, low wind, a pleasant temp (although I put my socks on), it was 60% humidity and 14.2°C as I wrapped up at 11:57 PM.

What a fun evening. Glad I tried for it. A little bit of ed. Some entertaining. A few more notches in the Messier post. More star hopping practice (I'm getting fast). Some surprises: M27, the Coathanger, a fireball. And remarkably clear skies.