The clouds that covered Sydney had cleared by early evening although some initial high winds and a return of some cloud threatening to spoil things.
5 members and 3 visitors attended the clubs’ observing site and a number of objects were observed including the Ring Nebula M57 in Lyra, the Dumbbell Nebula M27 in Vulpecula and Lagoon Nebula M8 in Sagittarius. Of course no session would be complete without having observed plenty of open and globular clusters. It was certainly nice to have been able to observe both Tuc47 and Omega Centauri in the same evening again. Viewing to Saturn was good but not so for Mars as it continued to be difficult to resolve, they did however form a very distinct triangle with Spica ealier in the evening. The silver coin galaxy NGC253 in Sculptor rose later and was viewed on two of the telescopes that were present. Colin was sans scope but set his camera up on a tripod instead and managed to capture some good time exposures.
The interestingly coloured double star Beta Cygni ‘Albireo’ in Cygnus was pointed out by Jeff and made for good viewing in even the smaller telescopes.
Jeffs 16″ dobsonion continued to provide the best views and probably the most interesting point of the evening was observing the globular cluster NGC6723 in Sagittarius, the double reflection nebula NGC6726/6727 and nebula NGC6729 in Corona Australis all in the one field of view!
It was only when we finally packed up at about 1130 we realised how cold it was. Another great evenings observing despite the early misgivings about the wind and cloud.
Thanks Tim
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